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The Premier introduced a kind of carbon tax today, it’s called a cap and trade system. It’s a complicated system of making polluting companies pay for the greenhouse gases they emit, but critics say it’s easily manipulated by industry and in the end, the average consumer will pay more for things like gassing up your car and heating your house.

Even though we learned today Ontario’s long talked about carbon system would be cap and trade in nature, there are few details yet about how it will work. The “cap” is a limit on greenhouse gas emissions companies pay for permits to cover the amount of pollution they expect to generate. Every company that generates emissions is given a cap and if they aren’t using their quota, or if they need a bigger quota, they can “trade” with other companies in the three linked jurisdictions, Ontario, Quebec or California.

Environment Hamilton had been pushing for a different model, carbon pricing, like in BC. There everyone who burns fossil fuels pays a set rate whether you’re gassing up the family car or powering a steel mill. Lynda Lukasik from Enviroment Hamilton says companies can manipulate a cap and trade system. For one thing, polluters already have to report emissions, some do actual testing, others use computer models to guess. “You hear other stories; industries overestimating their emissions so they get more permits at the outset.”

The government says it doesn’t know what this will cost businesses or the average Ontarian, it’s still deciding how the whole plan will work. The Premier did say Ontarians can expect to pay 2 and a half to 3 cents more a litre for gas, because of the cap and trade plan. “The costs of further delay, further pollution, and catastrophic weather, these are the costs we cannot endure.”