This week the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) released findings from a study it commissioned entitled Counting the Costs: The Effects of the Federal Kyoto Strategy on Canadian Households.

The study, authored by noted academic Dr. Ross McKitrick from the University of Guelph, predicts a 5.5% drop in "real" household incomes - $2,700 for the average family - starting in 2010 if Canada ratifies the Kyoto protocol.

The Kyoto protocol, signed in 1997, binds Canada to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 6% below 1990 levels over the period of 2008 and 2012. However, even this week, a growing chorus of climatologists and other experts challenged the science that underlies the fields of climate change and global warming.

The costs and the science of Kyoto should be put under the pubic microscope for all to judge.

In the CTF study, Dr. McKitrick notes, "the price increases and wage reductions needed to bring energy consumption down to Kyoto levels will reduce annual real net household income by about $2,700 annually. In light of the fact that Kyoto yields no economic or environmental benefits this is obviously a bad deal for Canadian households and should be rejected."

The federal government continues to pass off fancy - but vague - PowerPoint slides as its Kyoto plan. Meanwhile, Canadians have been kept in the dark as to the real costs of Kyoto. Worse still, Canada has to show a concrete plan by 2005. It must meet its emissions target over the entire 2008 to 2012 period. Yet Ottawa still cannot account for 60 megatonnes of emissions reductions - a full 25% - of their 240 megatonne requirement under Kyoto.

This is hardly the open, no surprises process promised by Ottawa just three weeks ago when it released the latest version of its so-called draft plan on October 24th.

The CTF believes Kyoto is bad public policy. On top of its staggering affect on household incomes starting in 2010 and every year after that, consider these other findings from Counting the Costs:

Ottowa hasn't conducted independent reviews of the science or cost estimates behind Kyoto;

Preferences for energy consumption are stable - changing consumption patterns could require natural gas price hikes of 90% and gasoline price hikes as high as 50%;

Assumptions of a smoothly-functioning international emissions credit market are flawed; and

A drop in real wages of 5.8% along with a 5.5% drop in real net incomes by 2010.

The polling is very clear: the more people learn about Kyoto the less they like it. Its support plummets like lemmings off a cliff.

Since September, the CTF has been calling for the Prime Minister to put the Kyoto ratification decision to Canadians directly in a referendum as this issue is of equal magnitude - if not greater - to the Free Trade Agreement or the Charlottetown Accord. He should choose the path of democracy as opposed to his present legacy of demagoguery on this file. If not, it will definitely be Kyoto Ugly for some time to come.