It is sad to admit that I am not overly enthusiastic about the Ontario NDP’s environmental plans for 2035. Most people tend to be skeptical of plans for when they are in their 90s. Those of us who realize we are getting older every day, tend to be more interested in plans that start today.
And people who put off environmental issues for tomorrow are damn stupid anyway. The world cannot wait. Just consider this weird winter we are experiencing in the northern hemisphere. Here we are, enjoying another spring-like day in early March, in Ontario. We are supposed to be in the throes of a miserable winter. And was it not just a couple weeks ago when Texas had a wallop of snow in a lot more than the Panhandle? While our weather forecasters go crazy, you would think that we should all be a little more concerned.
But here are the Ontario new democrats, sounding like the liberal governments of Dalton McGinty and Kathleen Wynne. The only difference is that the liberal incentives for electric-vehicle subsidies maxed out at $14,000 and the incentives became somewhat meaningless when applied to luxury vehicles.
Personally, I have wanted to go electric in my driving for quite a while. If that jerk Doug Ford had not come to power in Ontario and cancelled all the electric vehicle subsidies, I would probably be driving an electric car today. The practical concern in this has been that I want to be able drive about 600 kilometres between plug-ins. As it is, I am driving an import with a carbon-producing motor about the size required to power a lawn mower. It is only a small bow to environmental concerns.
One new part of the NDP environmental plan is the promise to retrofit five per cent of the provincial-owned buildings each year into being environmentally friendly. That might be a fine idea but they will probably find that it is better to start from scratch. They would likely save more by tearing down older, environmentally wasteful buildings and building new environmentally friendly ones.
And, as you would expect of any party eager for power, they want to create a youth corp. This one would be dedicated to greening the province.
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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry
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