Please accept the following…

Please accept the following as my official comments on Bill 4, Cap and Trade Cancellation Act, 2018, posted for consultation as ERO 013-3738.

I am a voter in Ontario. I write to you, those whose sacred and solemn responsibility it is to protect my interests, as your constituent.

I am troubled that I even need to pen comments to this government on such a fundamental issue as the environment. Though Canada, and Ontario in particular, certainly doesn't have a strong history of trailblazing environmentalism, we have been a strong voice in global conversations surrounding this issue. When I consider the actions of our neighbours to the south (I think of the actions taken by the administration to gut the EPA, to appoint a climate-denier to its helm), I want to believe that Ontario is better positioned, that it is more reasonable. I want to believe that the government in control of Ontario is better positioned, that it is more reasonable than the administration in the USA.

This is evidently not the case.

Through the scrapping of green energy initiatives, the termination of the Chief Science Officer, and the cancellation of cap and trade are obvious hallmarks of poor, indeed absent, environmental stewardship. What's more, these changes are touted as money-saving for the people of this province, and yet there is a pledge to use an earmarked $10M to fight the federal government in court re: cap and trade. Where does this money come from? The immediate savings reaped from these hasty policy decisions? I need not spend a great deal of time discussing how relatively small, preventative investments in the present snowball into gigantic savings in the future. The $790 million saved (a whopping $60 per citizen) pales in comparison to the infrastructure investments, the investments in repair, the health care investments that will rapidly become necessary if our climate continues to worsen. If we do not act now, if we do not set aggressive targets to reduce carbon emissions (thereby fighting to become carbon neutral), then we will pass the 1.5 degree increase in global temperature that 195 countries (and countless scientists) agreed as being the threshold for our very survival. What then will we do with $10M? $790M?

The future of this province and indeed of this world rests on decisions made in the now about the future. Climate change is not a contested idea in any field in which it is discussed. I'll repeat: climate change is not a contested idea. The policies enacted by this government suggest to me that it believes there is room for debate, that the initiatives hitherto enacted can bend to ideological whims. I urge this government to end the ideological pandering and accept fact as fact. Yes, it means that carbon will become more expensive. That the market will shift. That businesses will come (as they adapt to change) and go (as they refuse to adapt), but that is true of any market change. We have an opportunity to be a global leader in the emerging carbon market. We have an opportunity to forge trusting and long-lasting relationships with partners, municipalities, and countries around the globe. We have an opportunity to make Ontario an investment of choice when it comes to green energy projects. If we do not participate in cap and trade markets, we trail behind. We lose legitimacy. We lose our place at the table.

Though the tides of government ebb and flow, making it easy to believe that the sitting government is only responsible for the people in this province within its term of power, the institution of the Legislative Assembly is responsible for the people of Ontario in a long-term way. It remains responsible for the people so long as there are people to govern. In that sense, the stewardship of today is directly correlated with the effective management of tomorrow. Thus, it is imperative that this government take into account not only the short-term, superficial "benefits" of nixing a cap and trade system, but also of the long-term, emerging, devastating costs of such legislation.

A concerned and increasingly disheartened Ontarian,

Jared