Doug Ford’s gas pump stickers are meant to mislead
There are different ways to be wrong, and the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario’s plan to mandate a ‘federal carbon tax notice’ on gas pumps across the province can lay claim to at least two of them: they’re misleading, and they’re unconstitutional.
The simple, easy rebuke of these problematic sticky squares lies in their failure to mention the year-end rebate every Ontarian receives from the revenue generated by the federally mandated carbon tax; a gross misrepresentation of the carbon tax itself, and our first indication that something other than public awareness is the goal of said stickers. Consider a Toronto family of four, who would have received $307 this year as their federal Climate Action Incentive rebate, drawn directly from carbon tax dividends. Over this same year, if they filled their vehicles gas tank once per week they would have spent $2,758 on gasoline – only $103 of which would’ve been comprised of the 4.4¢ per litre federally-imposed carbon tax. So far, the folks Doug Ford likes to call ‘friends’ are up $204 from the tax he likes to call ‘terrible’.
However, no matter your opinion on climate change, the federal carbon tax, or Doug Ford’s provincial Conservatives, this is ultimately a civil rights issue because it involves the provincial government intruding into private business by demanding a platform for their politics. The Charter forbids compelled speech as a violation of free speech. Astute readers, and smokers alike, might bring up the cancerous tongues, diseased hearts, and needles-in-eyeballs printed on every package of cigarettes as evidence of legally compelled speech. But an important distinction separates those justly obligatory Health Canada warnings, as well as ingredient lists and calorie counts – which serve a genuine purpose as a public awareness campaign – from these gas pump stickers.
There’s no factual or ethical debate over whether cigarettes increase your risk of lung disease, or whether my Doritos contain 13 grams of fat per serving; so requiring those statements to be printed on their respective products’ packaging isn’t compelled speech in the same spirit Doug Ford’s stickers are – because these stickers are part of a political battle between national and provincial interests, between what the Liberal federal government wants you to welcome as ‘pollution pricing’ and the Conservative provincial government wants you to dismiss as a ‘carbon tax ‘. The conscription of gas station owners to one particular side violates their right to freedom of expression and speech.
It took a Supreme Court of Canada decision in the 90’s to get health warnings on cigarette packages, which only succeeded because the government successfully argued that the cost of compelled speech was justified given the deadly, and expensive, consequences of smoking. Trying to prove that these stickers are more public interest than party interest is casuistry at best, and downright Orwellian otherwise. Besides, if there was any doubt about the sticker’s intent, an alternate design proposed by the Canadian Independent Petroleum Marketers Association, showing the four other taxes that go into the price of gas, was rejected by the province.
Perhaps my preference for biking or riding the subway over myself, my G1, and my dad in his Toyota Corolla is evident to the reader by now, but every resident of Ontario should view August 30th as a day when the provincial government began to conscript private enterprise, our eyes, and our minds, in a battle they need to fight themselves.