The latest report from the…

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that it will take "unprecedented political committment" to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Nevertheless, provincial governments across Canada, including Ontario's, are rejecting carbon pricing. This makes no sense. Ontarians need a climate plan that has: a) hard targets based on science, b) a polluter pays policy, c) investment in green energy, and d) transparancy and accountability. Bill 4 - The Cap and Trade Cancellation Act - is actually a bill to cancel the Climate Change Mitigation and Low Carbon Economy Act with ABSOLUTELY NO REPLACEMENT. This is irresponsible governing. It includes the cancellation of Ontario's LEGISLATED greenhouse gas reduction targets. The bill includes nothing to replace the carbon reduction program, but DOES include a stipulation that no one can sue the Ontario government for failure to live up to any contracts undertaken and signed under the original act. Failure to live up to our contractual commitments is as nonsensical as when the new Ontario government, in one fell swoop, cancelled 758 green energy projects. Most of them were small, in rural or First Nation communities, and those communities had already made investments and plans around these projects. Several of them were the result of international design competitions. One of them was 90% complete, so they are now tearing down wind turbines. Remember what a scandal it became when the Liberals canceled ONE gas plant project because of all the money that wasted? This government is wasting Ontarian's money (both by cancelling existing projects and by hurting Ontarians with whom the government has contracted) and, even more so, by failing to think about the long-term consequences of climate change. It's also short-sighted, in failing to consider the money that can be made by investing in green energy, and the money that can be saved by reducing the effects of climate change.