A staffer for a federal minister took artistic liberties Wednesday with the Ontario government’s anti-carbon tax TV ad, a video that many observers said took liberties with the facts.
“Fixed a few things in [Premier Doug Ford]’s climate change attack ad,” Braeson Holland, press secretary to Minister Maryam Monsef, wrote on Twitter.
“The federal government has put a price on pollution,” a narrator says over the Progressive Conservatives’ footage of nickels pouring out of gas pumps and heating vents. “They made it revenue neutral, so big polluters are paying and you get a rebate.”
The federal carbon tax came into effect in Ontario on April 1 and the rebate was up for grabs on 2018 tax returns.
Holland’s video also mentions that the Ontario government has set aside $30 million to fight Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government on its carbon tax with ads and a court challenge.
He said he got the idea from economist Mike Moffatt’s tweet, which said that if you watch the original ad with the sound off, it looks like it’s promoting the carbon tax.
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The Ford government unveiled its new taxpayer-funded ad Monday.
It shows nickels pouring out of gas pumps and heating vents while a narrator says that the federal carbon tax will cost families nickels more on almost everything they buy. The ad does not explain that the revenue is being rebated to taxpayers and most households are expected to get more money back than they pay.
The production was slammed as dishonest and wasteful in editorials by the Toronto Sun, The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail.
Ontario’s Environment Minister Rod Phillips told reporters Monday that their ad is “very clear.”
He said it communicates the message that the Ontario government is against any type of carbon pricing, whether it’s the federal government’s version or the previous provincial government’s cap and trade program.
“We’ll let them communicate their message,” he said of the federal government.
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