Two months ago Ontario Premier Doug Ford said voters – not the courts – should decide the future of Canada’s carbon tax.

If Canadians supported the levy at the federal ballot box, he suggested the province would drop its court challenge of the Trudeau government’s carbon pricing system because he respects the will of the people.

Well, the people have spoken.

In Monday’s election, voters handed two-thirds of seats to the Liberals, New Democrats, Greens and Bloc Québécois, which all support carbon pricing.

In Ontario the results were even starker. A full 70 per cent of seats in the province went to parties that support putting a price on carbon. The Liberals won 79 and the NDP six, while the Conservatives, the only party to oppose the carbon tax, won just 36.

So it’s troubling that Ford now seems to be backing off what he said in August.

“As we evaluate the results of the federal election ... we will continue to discuss our government’s efforts to fight the federal carbon tax,” Ford’s office said on Tuesday.

No doubt Ford hoped voters would support Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, who promised to axe the carbon tax. That didn’t happen. Canadians elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals again, albeit with a minority government.

But Ford did not say he’d do what the people wanted only if they delivered the result he wanted.

He said: “This carbon tax, it’s not going to be the courts that are going to decide. The people are going to decide when the election is held … I believe in democracy, I respect democracy, we move on.”

Indeed, that’s exactly what New Brunswick’s Progressive Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs, who finds himself in the same position as Ford, is doing.

After voters handed 70 per cent of seats in his province to pro-carbon pricing parties (the Liberals won six of 10, and the Greens one) Higgs said his government will now look at how to comply with the federal requirement to put a price on fossil fuels.

“People voted for it, so we in New Brunswick have to find a way to make it work,” Higgs said. “I can’t ignore the obvious here. The country has spoken.”

The question now is whether Ford will try to ignore the obvious and continue his misguided fight against the best way to fight climate change in Ontario. Or will he use the federal results as the final impetus he needs to change course.

Monday’s vote is really just the latest thing to be added to the pile of reasons why he should do so.

Ontario’s economic growth and job numbers prove that carbon pricing is not a job-killing tax, as Ford has so often claimed.

Fiscal watchdogs have reviewed the program and say most people will get more back than they pay so it’s also not a secret tax grab, as Conservatives love to claim. It will cost the average Ontario household $258 this year but the $307 rebate they’ll get will offset those costs and then some.

Top economists around the world say a price on carbon is the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.

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The Ford government resoundingly lost the first round in its legal battle against Ottawa’s carbon pricing scheme at the Ontario Court of Appeal. And it’s beyond the pale for a government finding savings in education and public health to set aside $30 million to finance its fight against a necessary climate-change measure.

Ontario’s MPPs return to the legislature on Monday after a lengthy summer break. Ford should use that as his opportunity to announce that Ontario will abandon its Supreme Court appeal of the federal levy.

That’s the only way the premier can show that he meant what he said about respecting democracy and moving on.

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