I oppose this bill. I…

I oppose this bill. I believe it is deeply irresponsible, cowardly, and quite frankly stupid to oppose a market-based solution, particularly as the IPCC has stated that our window for avoiding disastrous climate change will close within the next 12 years. We need market mechanisms and we need the innovation these mechanisms spur. Time is of the essence.

Pollution has damaging and costly consequences. It shouldn’t be free. Imposing a fee for emitting GHGs creates an incentive to shift behaviour towards cleaner choices and motivates industry to create technologies that reduce emissions and improve energy efficiency. Nobody wants to pay more for anything. But moving to lower-GHG emissions now will be less of a burden in the long run. Climate change will have increasingly costly effects unless we curb GHG emissions now. And unless we do our part in Ontario, it will be hard to convince anyone else in the world do theirs.

Carbon pricing is an economic principle that has been studied and endorsed by economists for decades. Using market mechanisms to reduce pollution has been successfully done in the past. Innovation that leads to lower-emissions becomes a way to generate revenue and a competitive advantage. A carbon price doesn’t have to be a financial burden.

This bill does not support Ontario, our shared future as citizens of a shared fragile planet, and it certainly does not support business. It must be scrapped. Frequent changes to the cost of polluting makes it impossible for businesses to plan for their medium-and-long-term success. This is exactly the situation in Ontario. With the sudden cancellation of C&T, businesses were left with permits that are now effectively worthless (though likely to be refunded by the government), and uncertainty about whether a federal carbon tax will be imposed.