This government's plan to…

This government's plan to axe Ontario's cap-and-trade scheme is incredibly short-sighted and backward-thinking. It betrays that they have no real understanding of the seriousness of the climate change risks facing the province, the country and the world, not least because Premier Ford keeps erroneously referring to it as a "carbon tax"!

I note that under Bill 4, the Government is required to "establish targets", and to "prepare a climate change plan" & "progress reports". However, as the recent IPCC October 2018 report shows, and as anyone who's been paying attention to the growing problems caused by climate change over the past two decades knows, we're well past the time for targets, plans and reports.

Like it or not, the reality is that the negative externalities caused by large-scale carbon emitters are very real & very harmful, and it is proven that the best way to deal with that is some form of price on carbon, be it a cap-and-trade scheme or a tax. The main advantage of the former is that it imposes the costs directly on the largest polluters (something this government's rhetoric has done a fine job of obfuscating), and encourages said polluters to cut their emissions.

Finally, even if this Bill were to pass, it seems doomed to be a futile and costly effort, given the Federal government's plans to impose a carbon tax: fighting Ottawa on this front will cost the Province huge sums in legal challenges, will divert energy and time away from the serious problems facing Ontario, and based on consensus legal opinion, is quite likely to be unsuccessful anyway.

In conclusion, *please* reconsider this ill thought out, damaging and costly bill.