Challenging Carbon

It would appear that the Tory government of Premier Doug Ford wants a piece of the Fast & Furious franchise since it is wasting no time putting its political rubber to the road.

Late last week, Environment Minister Rod Phillips and Attorney General Caroline Mulroney announced they will launch a constitutional challenge against the Trudeau Liberals' plan to foist a carbon-pricing plan on our province.

One of the first things Premier Ford did was pull the plug on the defeated Wynne Liberals' dim-bulb idea to hit us with a tax grab disguised as a cap-and-trade scheme to penalize everyone for every whiff of greenhouse gas.

The result would increase consumer prices on just about everything not made of natural fibre, and make manufacturing in our province even less competitive.

As Ford put it, “Ontario taxpayers should not be subjected to a punishing carbon tax that makes our province uncompetitive and unaffordable.”

So, he is taking the feds to court, and has budgeted $30-million to cover the legal costs since there also appears to be no such thing as a cheap lawyer.

But at least we have a tag-team in action.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe also wants no part of being forced by the federal Liberals to be onside with a carbon plan his province so vehemently opposed.

So, he's taking them to court, too.

Any more takers?

Until the McGuinty-Wynne Liberals came along with the expensive, inefficient and ineffective Green Energy Program that made Liberal insiders rich and the rest of us poorer, Ontario was known as the economic engine of Canada.

Our electricity rates were among the lowest in North America and our workforce was able and dependable.

That was before coal became a dirty word, of course, all which got the Liberal-friendly investors making a killing on wind turbines and solar panels that shot the price of our household Hydro One bills through the roof.

The Ford Tories are setting out to right that wrong, and have already forced the Trudeau Liberals to scale back on their carbon-pricing plot.

It is still early days, though, and a long way to go.

But we are beginning to see light.