Before cancelling Ontario's…

Before cancelling Ontario's Cap and Trade, one should consider....

How sure are we that the Long-Term Energy Plan isn’t underestimating how climate change could affect the long-term demand for electricity, especially when the effects of climate change continue to grow more extreme with each passing year? (I’m talking more cooling and heating that will likely blow long-term energy forecasting).

How sure are we that Environmental Refugees won’t push population growth predictions for Ontario a lot higher and a lot quicker? (I’m talking displaced scores of communities seeking our refuge when climate change makes their regions un-inhabitable).

How sure are we that Bill 4’s outline of Cap and Trade (CnT) replacement comes even close to the potential to curb greenhouse gases (GHGs), to fund energy-efficiency in schools, public housing, hospitals, transits systems that the current program does?

And finally, how sure are we that cancelling measures to reduce the causes of climate change (Bill 4’s Cap and Trade Cancellation Act, for example) won’t condemn us to even greater effects of climate change? It takes significant time to put such plans into place. For example, it was seven plus years after Ontario first signed onto the Western Climate Initiative that Ontario was even able sign deals with Quebec and California to launch the program.

If you really intend to lower energy costs and to reduce effects on our atmosphere, keep the current programs in place at least until you have a plan that will better what is already crafted, vetted, adopted and working. But please, do not leave us without any efforts to reduce GHGs. Please, before saying that the current programs weren’t effective, ask for data on how the programs, funded by the current CnT was reducing our carbon footprint. And please consider that every day counts.

Thank you for your consideration.