My understanding of the…

My understanding of the motivation behind the proposal of Bill 4: Cap and Trade Cancellation Act, 2018, is that it was determined by the premiere of Ontario, Doug Ford, that the cap and trade system has no impact on the environment and that the cancellation of cap and trade system will lower gas prices and benefit Ontarians. However, I would like to oppose these statements by discussing the possible impacts of Bill 4, the significance of the Bill 4 in energy and environmental policies in Ontario and how the Bill should be amended.

The impact of the currently proposed Bill 4 will be significant in environmental and economical terms. Environmentally, there will be no limitation to the polluters and GHG emission will no longer be contained. Canada and Ontario were collectively heading in the right direction to meet the goals outlined by the Paris agreement, but the inadequate climate change planning of Bill 4 will constrain Canada from reaching the Paris agreement targets. Climate disruption will undoubtedly cost Ontario money in the future, and in the present, there will be immediate economical damages in Ontario from the outcome of Bill 4.
One of the immediate economic damages in Ontario is to the clean technology sector. Ontario’s cleantech companies play a major global role as 35% of Canada’s cleantech companies are located in Ontario. Canada ranked 4th in the world and first in the G20 according to the 2017 Global Cleantech Innovation Index. Cap and trade revenue was being invested in to industries and innovations for growth in the cleantech sector. However, the inability to maintain government investment in the industry will result in job losses in the cleantech sector and decrease the size of the market. The clean technology sector in Ontario generates an estimated $19.8 Billion of annual revenue, capitalization of $41 Billion listed by Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange List and employs 130,000 people according to Invest in Ontario. There has been an investment of $250 Million to cleantech companies from out-of-Ontario sources during the first six months of 2018, according to Section 1.3.3. 2018 Greenhouse Gas Progress Report. It is expected that the investment will decrease due to the instability of the energy policy in Ontario. In addition, Ontario is also at risk of losing the allocated $420 Million from the Low Carbon Economy Leadership fund by not complying with the Pan-Canadian Framework. To make the matter worse, the Ontario government is planning to challenge the federal government on carbon pricing regulations. The court challenge fee is estimated to be $30 Million as described in Section 1.4.2. in the Greenhouse Gas Progress Report. Once the federal court challenge fails, Ontario will be $30 Million short of Ontarians’ tax money and will be charged with an even more expensive carbon tax. Carbon tax is expected to rise more steeply up to $50/ tonne until 2022 compared to the cap and trade’s gradual increase to the same cost by 2028. The Ontario government needs to remind themselves that the province will have control over cap and trade revenues whereas the carbon tax is controlled by the federal government. The Ontario government’s arbitrary decision to remove themselves from the cap and trade system will only hurt Ontarians. Ontario’s abrupt decision to withdrawal from Cap-and-Trade Agreement between Quebec and California without a proper 12-month notice will impact Ontario businesses. Ontario’s relationship of $42 Billion export to Quebec and $30 Billion export to California will be at risk and damage Ontario businesses.
I would like to analogize the current situation to a person deserted on an island with a bottle of Gatorade. The individual has two options: 1) build a sustainable rainwater collection system while simultaneously limiting daily Gatorade intake or 2) drink all the Gatorade at once and hope that the rainwater collection system will be built before it’s too late (like the Ontario government’s technique). This is surely a long way off from the route to sustainability. The government also showed regression on energy policy in Ontario through the proposal of Bill 4.

Environmental and economical impacts aside, Bill 4 demonstrates a step backwards for energy and environmental policy in Ontario. The Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR) Part 2 states that public participation is required for environmentally significant proposals for policies and Acts. However, the Ministry of Environment failed to provide public consultation. Public consultation was posted only hours after the lawsuit from the Greenpeace. The public consultation should have been initiated by the Ministry of Environment before the introduction of Bill 4. According to Canada 2020 Polling Canada’s Climate, 84% of Canadians think Canada has an obligation to address global warming. As shown by the survey, climate change is a significant environmental topic for Canadians, and the right to be consulted by the government should not be neglected again. The Ministry of Environment and the government should reflect on their conduct and be rigorous about their future activities. One of the actions the government could take to better represent the opinions of Ontarians is to amend a few components of Bill 4.

The currently proposed Bill 4 contains many unspecified and vague statements. These will need to be amended if the government would like to proceed with a new climate change act. We need to focus on the bill’s target, climate change plan, reporting and expenditure plans.
Subsection 3 Target in Bill 4 is vague on what exactly the “target” is. The current target does not include specific measures and this is comparable to the Climate Change Mitigation and Low-carbon Economy Act (CCMLEA) subsection 6. To repeal CCMLEA, Bill 4 should have been prepared with a similar or higher level of detail to prove that Bill 4 is well constructed and thought through. Specific targets constructed in legislation will be firmer and harder to change in the future. The current statement is vague and vulnerable in its legitimacy so it could be changed by the government arbitrarily. The target should be more defined. It should touch on specifying long-term reduction target, its intention to establish interim targets and the temperature target.
Subsection 4 Climate Change Plan of Bill 4 lacks details regarding planning. The Climate Change Plan should be amended so that the government seeks traditional ecological knowledge consultation with Indigenous groups, constructs sources of fund, penalizes polluters and sets a greenhouse gas emission reduction goal. Most importantly, the impact of the new climate change plan for small businesses and low-income families should be included to exhibit the motivation of the new government’s proposal of Bill 4.
Subsection 5 Minister’s progress reports of Bill 4 should be amended to better deliver the progress of the new plan. Current “regular basis” reporting time frames need to be clearly defined in terms of months or year(s). The current bill does not outline the content of the progress report and this should be defined to include the status of action of climate change actions. This will provide clarity of the climate change actions and its results to the stakeholders.
Paragraph 5 of Subsection 11 (2) Authorized Expenditures needs to be amended to give clarity concerning how the rest of Cap and Trade Wind Down Account will be used to reduce or support the reduction of greenhouse gas. After the expenditures of $5 Million compensation to fuel companies and administrative costs to wind down the cap and trade system, there will be hundreds of millions of dollars left. Since the current Bill 4 does not state where the funds for the climate change plan will be coming from, the remaining balance of the account needs to be spent wisely through rigorous expenditure planning to support climate change actions.
Further extending from Bill 4 into the climate policy making in Ontario, the new government has already shown regression through a lack of public consultation during the proposal of Bill 4. The government needs to progress on the climate policy making to stabilize climate plans in Ontario.

We need to take an exemplary case from U.K. 2008 Climate Change Act. Before the proposal of the Act, the 2006 Stern Review (The Economics of Climate Change) result exhibited strong costs of climate change and the possible economic benefits of reducing emission. This built cross-party consensus for climate change which later shaped the 2008 Climate Change Act that survived changes in both governing parties and party leadership. To follow this climate policy model, the Ontario government needs to construct a legally binding carbon budget which is supported by an independent, expert, non-partisan evidence-based study. This will ensure that the budget is economically and technologically reasonable. Secondly, the government should respect its obligation to the Environmental Bill of Rights. Public consultation and notice on environmentally significant Ontario’s legislation should be provided. Lastly, the government could specify the rules to give notice on when and how the policies will be revised. This gives better predictability to the investors, and is important as the investors will assist the government in initiating projects and creating jobs in the cleantech sector.

Due to the stated impacts and problems of the currently proposed Bill 4, the Premier of Ontario’s intention to lower gas price and the benefits to Ontarians will not work. The gas price will rise because of the expensive federal carbon tax. Ontarians will suffer from the huge economical impacts from the cancellation of cap and trade and the under-defined future plans. The proposal of Bill 4 seems very abrupt because of the failure to provide public consultation, improper withdrawal from Cap-and-Trade Agreement and the vague bill contents. I urge the government to review the contents of Bill 4 cautiously and take in to account the suggestion of possible amendments so as to better plan the climate change actions to benefit Ontarians, energy policy in Ontario and the climate.