Dear Members of Provincial…

Dear Members of Provincial Parliament,

Ontarians will remember how you vote on Bill 4. If you vote to cancel Ontario’s cap-and-trade program, we will know that you gave up on your responsibility to safeguard us against the threats of global warming. You would be shouldering the blame for floods, fires, and poor air quality in Ontario, and for the crises of drought, food-insecurity and rising sea-levels around the world that are increasing violent conflict and sending refugees our way. To claim credit for a very small savings, you would be destroying a vibrant economic stimulus program that is budgeted to fund repairs in many of Ontario’s dilapidated schools, one that creates jobs and supports work in the new economy. A vote for Bill 4 would not just be unpopular with those on the left: you will be acting against the better judgment of the executives of major businesses, including those in the energy and insurance sectors, as well as fiscal conservatives.

I’ll start with economics. Bill 4 is supposed to bring down costs for Ontarians by an estimated $13 per month per household. But those funds go straight to projects and jobs in the new economy, like energy retrofits on schools. Schools in Toronto are in bad shape, but the provincial government has taken the $100 million already collected for school retrofits and put it into general funds. The government has also cancelled 758 renewable energy projects. Cancelling cap-and-trade is obviously going to eliminate the construction jobs made possible by those projects. How is that supposed to be good for Ontarians? The industry group IETA, which includes Merrill Lynch, Enbridge, Commonwealth Bank, and Michelin, has concluded that cap-and-trade is a net positive for the Ontario economy [1]. The Ontarians I know would be happy to pay the price of a few coffees every month to have the jobs, economic stimulus, and improved school conditions (and efficiency savings) that cap-and-trade funds have offered.

Ontario businesses depend on future costs being predictable. Cap-and-trade provides great clarity on future costs. So, abruptly ending it with no replacement in sight is bad for business. Debate and gradual change would be far better -- for democracy, as well as for the economy. Stability is the reason the Climate Leadership Council (which includes companies like BP, ExxonMobil, Shell, and Unilever along with American fiscal conservatives) backs carbon pricing [2]. They know that one way or another, strong carbon pricing is coming, and they just want to avoid the type of chaos that Bill 4 represents.

Some of the most compelling arguments in favour of carbon pricing come from insurance executives, who need to clearly evaluate risks with large sums of money on the line. To quote from an article on climate risks by the former chief executive of State Farm [3]: “As an insurance professional with over 40 years of experience, I learned quickly that when actuaries warn about risks, you listen.” And as he explains, the warnings have become very clear.

About those warnings: it’s ironic and simply tragic that Bill 4 comes to a vote just as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released its special report on man-made global warming [4], showing that 2 degrees of average global warming would be dramatically worse than 1.5 degrees -- with a real risk of major climate crisis by 2040 [5]. The real costs of global warming are just getting clearer all the time. Ontarians will remember this summer’s headlines like “42 forest fires burning in northeast Ont., with 19 of them out of control” [6]. We are all increasingly aware that the unnaturally long fire season and increased intensity of wildfires can be traced back to the effects of global warming, which cap-and-trade is meant to hold in check.

Global warming makes for stronger storms, which means Ontarians will be facing more of the flooded basements, backed-up sewers, and days when Lake Ontario is too polluted for swimming. As these get more common, Ontarians will remember your vote on Bill 4 and hold you to account.

This is a matter of our public health too. Our air quality is worsened by the smoke from those fires, and smoke blowing across the border from fires in California, and from the pollution from car tailpipes and heavy industry. Air pollution has been shown to shave a year off life expectancy worldwide [7], causing and worsening illnesses like heart disease, dementia, and asthma, even at levels that have been considered safe [8]. If you vote for Bill 4 you will be voting against our health and longevity, especially for the oldest Ontarians, and we will not forget it.

Of course, global warming is a global problem and action on climate change is a moral imperative. This is especially true in Ontario, where nearly a third of all residents are immigrants like me [9]. This means that disasters elsewhere are very personal for your constituents, and it’s another reason we will hold you accountable for your vote on Bill 4.

Take hurricanes, which are intensified by warmer oceans: right now Hurricane Michael is pounding Florida, after being “super-charged” by unusually warm Gulf of Mexico water, while U.S. South is still recovering from Florence, Maria, and Harvey. As North Carolina’s governor put it (as his state deals with spilling lagoons of hog sewage and toxic coal ash), “When you have two 500-year floods within two years of each other it's pretty certain it's not a 500-year flood” [10].

When you add droughts and similar slow crises, like the inexorable rise of ocean levels which affect coastal cities and low-lying countries like Bangladesh, the World Bank and the UNHCR estimate that global warming is at the root of about one human migration per second and will require 140 million people to move in the coming years [11], with 65.6 million already displaced [12]. The damage is already felt in the Canadian Arctic, where permafrost thaw is destroying livelihoods right now, while accelerating climate change [13].

What you do now really matters. You have a chance to uphold Ontario’s place as a leader in the world, the likes of which made their citizens proud in the recent Global Action Summit [14]. Tired old arguments, like the notion that we can hang on to a carbon-fueled economy indefinitely, or the idea that action on global warming is just a grab for resources, are rapidly losing steam. By 2008 almost all Canadians are aware of the problem, almost two-thirds understood that it is man-made, and three-quarters of us perceived it as a threat [15]. Needless to say, these numbers are only going up as the alarming pace of global change becomes more clear, and as we Ontarians feel and understand its effects on our quality of life.

The health and wellbeing of Ontario is in your hands. Your responsibility goes far beyond saving us enough to buy the family a couple more coffees every month. In the face of the devastation that climate change is already wreaking, in the face of floods, fires, diseases, crumbling schools, and the growing numbers of refugees, the cancellation of cap and trade without any viable replacement is simply immoral. If you pass Bill 4 we will know that you are voting for misguided and selfish short-term interests over the long-term interests of your constituents and their children. But if you vote to keep our cap-and-trade program, you would be remembered for showing true political courage at a time when we so desperately need it.

The people of Ontario are watching.

References
[1] IETA.org: Ontario Cap and Trade Factsheet, https://www.ieta.org/resources/Canada/Ontario/IETA%20Ontario%20Factshee…
[2] Climate Leadership Council: https://www.clcouncil.org
[3] New York Times: An Insurance Executive Explains Why We Need a Carbon Tax
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/opinion/hurricane-greenhouse-gas-car…
[4] IPCC Special Report 15: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/
[5] New York Times: Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-climate-report-2040.html
[6] CTV News: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/42-forest-fires-burning-in-northeast-ont-…
[7] Environmental Science & Technology Letters: Ambient PM2.5 Reduces Global and Regional Life Expectancy: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.8b00360
[8] Science Daily: Air pollution a concern at levels currently accepted as 'safe':
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170630124346.htm
[9] Statistics Canada: Census Profile, 2016 Census: https://goo.gl/xaMC3J
[10] Inside Climate News: In Florence's Floodwater: Sewage, Coal Ash and Hog Waste Lagoon Spills: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18092018/hurricane-florence-flood-se…
[11] National Geographic: 143 Million People May Soon Become Climate Migrants:
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/climate-migrants-report-wor…
[12] NPR: The Refugees The World Barely Pays Attention To:
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/20/621782275/the-refu…
[13] CBC: 'It scares me': Permafrost thaw in Canadian Arctic sign of global trend:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/it-scares-me-permafrost-thaw-in-ca…
[14] The Weather Network: Global Climate Action Summit begins in San Francisco:
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/san-francisco-global-cl…
[15] Gallup (2009): Awareness, Opinions About Global Warming Vary Worldwide: http://www.gallup.com/poll/117772/Awareness-Opinions-Global-Warming-Var…