• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022 January 31, 2023
Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB January 31, 2023
Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty January 31, 2023
Rainforest Carbon Credits from World’s Biggest Provider are ‘Largely Worthless’, Investigation Finds January 31, 2023
Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing January 23, 2023
Next
Prev
Opinion & Analysis

Opinion: Ontario’s New ‘Carbon Tax’ Looks Like the One Doug Ford Fought

January 26, 2022
Reading time: 4 minutes
Full Story: Green Economy Law
Primary Author: Marc Z. Goldgrub

Bruce Reeve/Flickr

Bruce Reeve/Flickr

3
SHARES
 

“We’re fighting the carbon tax because it hurts seniors, workers, families, and small businesses,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford tweeted in 2019. Which makes it all the more interesting that Ford’s government instituted a new Ontario “carbon tax” this year, and it looks a lot like what he campaigned against, writes green economy lawyer Marc Goldgrub.

Ford’s “tax” takes the form of the Emission Performance Standards (EPS) program. On January 1, it replaced a similar program operated by the federal government called the Output-Based Pricing System (OBPS), one of the federal carbon pricing backstop program’s two components—the other being the fuel charge.

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
New!
Subscribe

Both the OBPS and EPS are cap and trade-style programs for large industrial facilities. More forgiving than the fuel charge, the programs are meant to ease the regulatory burden carbon pricing imposes on industry. The programs work by placing a permitted limit, or “cap”, on facilities’ annual emissions. If a facility emits more than the cap, it can buy allowances from facilities emitting under their cap (that can profit by the sale), or pay the government per excess tonne of carbon at the applicable rate.

Under the EPS, when facilities pay the excess emission charge to the government, that revenue goes to a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Account used to support Ontario industries in reducing emissions. And that’s also how much of the cap and trade revenue was allocated by Ontario’s previous government, led by Kathleen Wynne.

Facilities forced to spend on lowering emissions or paying for them will likely pass those costs on to consumers. In this way, an industrial carbon price ultimately serves as an effective consumer carbon tax. Admittedly, Ford was stuck with carbon pricing of some kind in Ontario following the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling in favour of the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act’s constitutionality. But if Ford hates carbon pricing so much because of the extra costs passed to consumers, he could have made Ontario’s program revenue neutral.

The federal law allows provinces to price carbon however they want as long as a program meets or exceeds federal standards. And provinces can make whatever use they want of the proceeds.

Ford’s government could have come up with its own fuel charge in addition to its industrial program, and ensured that citizens’ entire cost burden associated with carbon pricing was simply returned or offset. Tax breaks or credits, like those given in British Columbia’s program, were one option. Direct payments, like the federal Climate Action Incentive payments Ontario residents receive annually (soon quarterly), were another. They could even have copied Washington State’s (ultimately unsuccessful) 2016 proposal and reduced sales taxes.

Ford’s government, of course, did not make their carbon pricing program revenue neutral.

Furthermore, because the federal program returns all collected funds back to the provinces, and primarily serves to proscribe preferred corporate behaviour, the federal carbon price is not and never was a tax. Rather, it is a “regulatory charge”, as court after court reiterated in the various multi-million dollar lawsuits Ford launched or invited during his futile anti-carbon pricing crusade. Conversely, since Ford’s program will give the province a new source of revenue it can spend with considerable leeway, it looks a lot more like a carbon tax than what Justin Trudeau’s government passed.

Ford’s government had various options by which it could have ensured Ontario’s carbon pricing program did not impose new costs for Ontarians and did not function as a carbon tax. But after attacking Ontario Liberals for their “carbon tax” in 2018, and federal Liberals for their “carbon tax” in 2019, Ford quietly decided that in 2022, he actually wouldn’t mind his own.

Marc Z. Goldgrub is a lawyer at the Toronto-based Green Economy Law Professional Corporation: a corporate, commercial, and environmental law firm for the new green economy. Republished with permission. You can subscribe to Marc Goldgrub’s green economy newsletter here.



in Canada, Energy / Carbon Pricing & Economics, Energy Politics, Legal & Regulatory, Ontario, Opinion & Analysis, Sub-National Governments

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Mike Mozart/Flickr
Ending Emissions

BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022

January 31, 2023
322
Gina Dittmer/PublicDomainPictures
Canada

Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB

January 31, 2023
196
CONFENIAE
Ending Emissions

Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

January 31, 2023
61

Comments 1

  1. Boyd Reimer says:
    11 months ago

    In Nov, 2021, Ford promised to cut gas pump prices by 5.7 cents by the next budget. Am I missing something or is that a contradiction? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a contradiction. See link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-vehicle-licence-renewal-1.6359951

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Mike Mozart/Flickr

BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022

January 31, 2023
322
Gina Dittmer/PublicDomainPictures

Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB

January 31, 2023
196
Ken Teegardin www.SeniorLiving.Org/flickr

Virtual Power Plants Hit an ‘Inflection Point’

January 31, 2023
124
RL0919/wikimedia commons

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2.4k
Doc Searls/Twitter

Guilbeault Could Intervene on Ontario Greenbelt Development

January 31, 2023
132
/snappy goat

Rainforest Carbon Credits from World’s Biggest Provider are ‘Largely Worthless’, Investigation Finds

January 31, 2023
94

Recent Posts

CONFENIAE

Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

January 31, 2023
61
Victorgrigas/wikimedia commons

World Bank Climate Reforms Too ‘Timid and Slow,’ Critics Warn

January 31, 2023
42
United Nations

Salvage of $20B ‘Floating Time Bomb’ Delayed by Rising Cost of Oil Tankers

January 27, 2023
121
@tongbingxue/Twitter

Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’

January 23, 2023
341
Rachel Notley/Facebook

Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom

January 23, 2023
313
EcoAnalytics

Albertans Want a Just Transition, Despite Premier’s Grumbling

January 23, 2023
323
Next Post
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A1_Houston_Office_Oil_Traders_on_Monday.jpg

Investment Firms Need Skills Development for ESG, 2/3 of Finance Professionals Say

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}