Ontario greenhouse growers are pushing back against carbon tax

Premier Kathleen Wynne’s cap and trade program will kill the greenhouse industry, Essex County growers warned Monday.

The program favors large companies and large carbon polluters while hitting small greenhouse operations hard which will drive them out of business or push more and more growers to expand to Michigan and Ohio, TG&G Mastronardi owner Gerry Mastronardi said.

“I have a son who came back home and I’m telling him there’s no future here. You’re going to have to go and start looking somewhere else because if this persists, there won’t be anything left. We’ll be lucky to survive,” Mastronardi said of the family-run, 16-acre tomato operation.

Greenhouse growers asked Wynne to delay the cap and trade program, which is supposed to reduce carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas emissions, but it started in January. Now greenhouse growers who couldn’t voluntarily qualify for the program because their operations are too small or too energy efficient are getting their first natural gas bills.

Mastronardi said his natural gas delivery charges, where he said the carbon tax is hidden, will double from about $120,000 a year to $240,000. Large carbon dioxide producers are exempt from the tax in the first year and overall will pay far less per acre over six years, he said.

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