One month into Ontario's Cap and Trade program and a Leamington greenhouse owner is in shock over his natural gas bill.
Jamie Diniro of Diniro Farms says his December 2016 bill was about $19,000.
Last month, it was $41,674.
He says at this rate, he will be paying $200,000 more per year for natural gas and if it continues, he says in two years he will sell and move to Ohio or Illinois.
Diniro says he is at a disadvantage because he has about 26 acres.
"They have got a two-tier system going on in the greenhouse sector, "he says. "If I was a little over 32 acres I would be given four years before the tax would apply but since we are all a smaller operation, there are quite a few of us and we are being taxed right now."
"What the province is saying is the bigger guys need to compete in a global market but they are going to kill the little guys and I wouldn't call below 30 acres a small greenhouse."
Diniro estimates three-quarters of the greenhouses in Leamington, Kingsville and Chatham-Kent have below 30 acres and will impacted by the tax.
The Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce was calling for a deferral of the provincial pollution control program for at least a year until its impact could be studied.