Ontario Premier Doug Ford will present a bill next week to require any future government to hold a public referendum if it wants to impose a carbon tax or adopt a cap-and-trade system for emissions.

The Progressive Conservative Premier withdrew his province from the joint carbon market with Quebec and California after taking office in 2018, prompting the federal government to impose a carbon tax on its residents.

Ontario and other provinces challenged the federal carbon tax up to the Supreme Court of Canada but to no avail.

Ford is now trying to link Ontario Liberal Party's new leader, Bonnie Crombie, in voters' minds with the carbon tax imposed by Justin Trudeau's Liberal government in Ottawa, saying Crombie promoted it when she was a federal Liberal MP.

Crombie represented a riding in the Greater Toronto Area in the House of Commons for one term, between 2008 and 2011, under the Canadian Liberal Party banner before Trudeau became its leader. She was the mayor of Mississauga, in Greater Toronto, for nine years before being elected leader of the Ontario Liberal Party last December.

“Bonnie Crombie is the queen of the carbon tax,” Ford said today at a press conference held at a gas station in Mississauga.

The new leader of the Ontario Liberal Party responded to the premier of Canada’s most populous and economically largest province in a press statement, saying Ford is “desperate” and trying to “distract attention” from the “failures, flip-flops, and scandals that have plagued his government.”

Crombie also criticized the Ontario premier for cancelling effective programs for purchasing electric vehicles and others for renovating buildings to make them energy efficient.

For his part, Ford describes the carbon tax concept as “terrible,” arguing that it “takes money from people’s pockets” in addition to causing an increase in food delivery costs at a time when many Ontarians are struggling to cover their living expenses.

The federal government has defended the carbon tax in the past by saying it is an incentive to reduce polluting emissions, adding that residents of provinces subject to the federal carbon tax receive payments as tax rebates.

Ford did not specify today whether his government will extend the tax reduction on vehicle fuel, which is set to expire next June.

The next general election in Ontario is scheduled for 2026.