Premier Doug Ford has written to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asking for an urgent first minister’s meeting on the federal carbon tax.
In the two-page letter, Ford points out that the recent 23 per cent increase in the carbon tax has led to a sharp rise in gas prices across the province and making “everything from groceries to home heating more expensive.”
Similar letters requesting a first minister’s meeting have also been sent by premiers in Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Alberta, and Saskatchewan
“I’ve been in constant communication on a daily basis with a number of premiers, we aren’t happy about it to say the least,” he told reporters on Friday during an unrelated announcement in Ottawa. “He needs to sit down with us.”
While Ford has joined the growing chorus of premiers railing against carbon pricing, the prime minister was quick to point out it was Ford himself who triggered the carbon pricing backstop.
“Oh, now this is a nice irony,” Trudeau fired back. “Ontario actually started a cap-and-trade program. It was scrapped by Doug Ford when he first got elected which means the federal price on pollution that he is now complaining about is in because he got rid of the cap-and-trade program.”
When asked if he would bring forth an alternate solution, like Quebec has done, Ford deflected the question.
“They should get rid of this, totally. The carbon tax drives up the cost of everything.”
The Ford government does have their own carbon pricing scheme, one that charges industrial polluters $65 a tonne.