TORONTO — Ontario’s budget watchdog says the Ford government has created a multibillion-dollar hole by promising to cancel cap-and-trade.
Over the next four years, the province’s bottom line will take a $3-billion hit because of Premier Doug Ford’s decision to cancel the carbon-pricing market, says a report released Tuesday by the Financial Accountability Office.
The shortfall is due to: a drop in revenue, the costs to wind down the program, and the fact that the government is keeping some of the programs that were funded by cap-and-trade revenue.
[READ MORE: Deadbeat emitters benefit from cancelled cap-and-trade: experts]
Environment Minister Rod Phillips responded to the report by brushing off the impact on the budget.
“Obviously, when you cut a tax — particularly a tax that’s not effective, as the cap-and-trade program was not — it’s going to reduce government revenues,” Phillips told reporters. “We’d rather see that money in families’ pockets, and that’s what we did.”
Phillips’ comments contradict the province’s environment commissioner. Last month, Dianne Saxe said the cap-and-trade program was in fact helping to cut Ontario’s greenhouse-gas emissions and, without it, emissions will go up.
Neither Phillips nor Finance Minister Vic Fedeli would explain how the province will make up the cash shortfall.
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