FAO estimates cancelling cap and trade will worsen Ontario’s budget balance by $3 billion over four years

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

(TORONTO, October 16, 2018) – Today, Peter Weltman, Ontario’s Financial Accountability Officer, released A Financial Review of the Decision to Cancel the Cap and Trade Program.

By cancelling the cap and trade program, the Province’s annual budget balance will worsen by a cumulative total of $3.0 billion over the next four years. “This deterioration in the government’s budget balance occurs because the loss of cap and trade revenues will exceed the savings from cancelling the related spending programs” says Weltman.

The FAO’s report also compares the financial impacts that households and businesses would face under the cap and trade program compared to the federal government’s carbon pricing plan. Beginning in 2020, the federal government’s carbon pricing plan will impose higher costs on Ontario households and businesses. However, the Province is challenging the federal government’s ability to impose carbon pricing while the federal government has yet to announce how these carbon pricing revenues will be used.  How the federal revenues are recycled will determine the net impact of the federal plan on Ontario households.

Click here for the FAO’s report.

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For further information, please contact:
Kismet Baun l (416) 254-9232 l kbaun@fao-on.org l fao-on.org