To the Ministry of…

To the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks

As a suburban/urban resident living in southern Ontario, I currently get to enjoy an environment with clean air, and safe drinking water, and free from worry of major climate related disasters. This will change for the worse if Ontario refuses to participate in any way to reduce emissions.

The recent dire projections from the IPCC indicates that major problems will occur within my lifetime (I am about mid-thirties). All societies will be negatively impacted by climate change, and should the provincial government push through other plans to loosen controls on pollution, this will further deteriorate.

There is a trend, gaining popularity, toward increased recognition of climate change as a major issue, and wanting to do something about it. Cancelling cap and trade goes against this trend. If this problem is not dealt with in a reasonable way, we will be less able to cope, and business that the PC party purportedly supports cannot operate in remotely the same way.

The way I see it is that the current PC (Progressive Conservative) government is in a good position if they left cap and trade in place. Cap and trade is the preferred mechanism for conservatives. Policies in this country and across the globe are tending to better address climate change, and having a working policy on this could facilitate business.

The current government also appears to be discouraging public input on bill 4 with its minimal period of consultation of 30 days. Something similar could be seen for other legislations. Those who believed that this government would listen, I believe will be disappointed.

Thanks for reading.

PL