page_title: Premiership of Doug Ford
section_title: Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change
hierarchical_section_title: Premiership of Doug Ford / Office of the Premier / Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change
caption_attribution_description: English: Federal Carbon Tax will cost you sticker
context_page_description: Doug Ford is the 26th and current premier of Ontario, Canada. He won a majority in the June 7, 2018 Ontario general election, as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, caucus in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario and was sworn in as premier on June 29, 2018.
context_section_description: Rod Phillips, served as Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks in the first year of the Ford administration. During that time, the Ford government "legislated an end to cap and trade and redesigned the Endangered Species act". Jeff Yurek was appointed as  Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks in June, 2019.
  On June 7 after winning the election, Ford said that "very first item" on his agenda would be to cancel the federal carbon tax and provincial cap-and-trade programs in order to prevent motorists from being "gouged at the pumps".
  According to a June 28, 2018 article in The Economist, Ontario, with "Canada's second-highest public debt per person and a growing budget deficit", Fords' "poleaxing of cap and trade" would result in C$2.8bn worth of pollution permits owned by companies that could result in lawsuits. The article said that Ontario would lose C$2bn a year from the sale of pollution permits under its cap and trade program, which represents 1.3% of Ontario's revenue.
  On October 11, 2019, the Ontario divisional court dismissed a lawsuit by Greenpeace that was filed against the Ontario government for repealing cap-and-trade without public consultation. Justice David Corbett Justice Graeme Mew, two of the three judges on the panel, ruled that public consultations were a requirement under the Ontario's Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR), and that the Ford government "did not follow the law by ending the program on the basis of election results." However, once in office the Ford government had introduced new legislation that replaced that of the EBR. Justice Frederick L. Myers said that the new 2018 legislation allowed the Ford government to "lawfully cancel the program" without public consultations. Justice Myers added that, "The regulation whose legality we are asked to consider has been repealed and is no longer in existence."
  In November 2018, the Ford government announced that it was eliminating three provincial watchdog groups including the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario (ECO) to cut costs. Then Environmental Commissioner of Ontario (ECO), Dianne Saxe, had just submitted her 4-volume 339 page 2018 Environmental Protection Report, entitled "Back to Basics, to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Saxe was a "vocal critic" of the Ford government's "actions on climate change"—"their vow to fight a federal carbon tax, pulling out of more than 700 renewable energy contracts and moving to end the Ontario Green Energy Act."
  Bill 57, also known as the Restoring Trust, Transparency and Accountability Act transferred the Environmental Commissioner Officer's duties to the Auditor General of Ontario.
  Ford's government withdrew the province from the Western Climate Initiative emissions trading system, which had been implemented by the previous Liberal government.
caption: Carbon tax decals on gas pumps in Ontario, mandated by the Ford government during the 2019 Canadian federal election.
exif: {"Image ExifOffset": "242", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[43, 45, 953/50]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "W", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[79, 21, 884/25]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "10259/100", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[15, 29, 36]", "GPS GPSDOP": "18383/500", "GPS GPSImgDirectionRef": "M", "GPS GPSImgDirection": "204", "GPS GPSProcessingMethod": "[65, 83, 67, 73, 73, 0, 0, 0, 102, 117, 115, 101, 100]", "GPS GPSDate": "2019:08:25", "Image GPSInfo": "24195", "Image ImageWidth": "4032", "Image ImageLength": "3024", "Image Make": "Google", "Image Model": "Pixel 2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "HDR+ 1.0.259661839zr", "Image DateTime": "2019:08:25 11:30:05", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Thumbnail ImageWidth": "252", "Thumbnail ImageLength": "189", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "24607", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8103", "EXIF ExposureTime": "769/1000000", "EXIF FNumber": "9/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "37", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2019:08:25 11:30:05", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2019:08:25 11:30:05", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "517/50", "EXIF ApertureValue": "17/10", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "847/100", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "17/10", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "197/500", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "2221/500", "EXIF SubSecTime": "552726", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "552726", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "552726", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4032", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3024", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "24165", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Custom", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "27", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "1"}