The Canadian Civil Liberties Association says it will move forward with a Charter challenge against the Ford Government, over the PCs plan to force gas station operators to post their carbon tax stickers.
Back in April, the CCLA wrote the government in a letter that it would engage in legal action if it went ahead with its plan, which includes fining operators if they refuse to post the stickers.
"The Charter protects your right to express yourself, it also protects your right not to express yourself," Cara Zwibel said, the CCLA's director of fundamental freedoms program.
"It protects you from having a government force you to express its message, under force of law and under threat of a serious fine or punishment for not spreading that message."
The stickers say what the levy will cost per litre of gas in 2019, along with how much it'll cost in 2022.
Along with previous resistance from the CCLA and Chamber of Commerce, the Ontario Green Party parodied the idea with its own version, showing what the cost of climate change will be should government not tackle the problem.
Should the law come info effect, individual operators could be fined $500 each day or $1,000 a day for subsequent offences, while those fines are increased to $5,000 and $10,000 per day respectively for corporations.
The CCLA plans to launch the challenge later this month once the requirement comes into effect.
Premier Doug Ford dismissed the idea it was government intrusion back in April.
"Absolutely not, it's about transparency and accountability,'" he said. "People of our province have to know how our federal government is gouging them."
Ford argued government-mandated stickers already exist and the stickers are in the public interest.
"This is a fight that we have to continue," he said.
The CCLA has been involved with legal battles with the Ford Government before, including challenging the repeal of the previous sex education curriculum, which it lost and is appealing.
But Zwibel argues this is a much more cut-and-dry case.
"It's not about the climate issue and it's not even really about this particular sticker, it's about whether a government can force private individuals to convey a message for them on their behalf," she said.
She added while individual gas station operators are free to join the challenge, she suspects that won't happen out of fear of ramifications.