Instead of saving money, Ontario's Financial Accountability Office says the decision to cancel the cap and trade program will cost families.
A report released today by the province's financial watchdog says the decision will hit Ontario's budget to the tune of $3 billion over four years.
"We don't make judgement calls on what's necessary or unnecessary," Financial Accountability Officer Peter Weltman told reporters. "We're the referees. We call it as we see it. As somebody once said, it's just math."
A graph showing the impact on Ontario's budget from the FAO report.
The previous Wynne government implemented the program to rein in and reduce Ontario's greenhouse gas emissions on January 1, 2017. It raised revenue for the province by auctioning off how much companies would be allowed to emit.
Asked who will feel the impact most directly, Weltman was unequivocal.
"If it's something that hits the province's budget deficit, then the province needs to borrow money to fund that, and taxpayers ultimately pay those debts," he said.
In July, the Ford government cancelled it saying it would save the average family $260 annually.
However, the FAO says if Ottawa makes good on a promise to impose carbon pricing on provinces that do not have a plan to fight climate change, the decision will cost families $258 this year, rising to $648 by 2022.
Keeping the program would have cost Ontario households an estimated $264 this year, rising to $312 by 2022.
Ontario and Saskatchewan have filed a lawsuit to prevent the federal government from imposing the carbon tax.
The province had set targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. By 2030, the goal was 37 per cent lower, and 80 per cent lower by 2050.
Earlier this month, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a special report warning the impact of climate change is already being felt across the globe and suggests the world's leaders have just 12 years to rein in atmospheric warming to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
An hour after Weltman released his report to reporters, the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party issued its own release to the media saying, "the radical NDP want to make life harder for Ontario families through unaffordable ever-increasing carbon taxes."
The statement from the party continued, "Carbon taxes do nothing to protect the environment. They are nothing but a cash-grab for out-of-control government spending. It's a shame the NDP want to make life even harder for Ontario families. Thankfully, voters soundly rejected the NDP-Wynne Liberal cap-and-trade carbon tax in the last election."