If you really want to screw something up, you just have to wait long enough for Ontario’s Premier Kathleen Wynne to get involved. When you know that your opponents will be on the attack as soon as you announce a new program, a little preplanning is a good idea. Ontario’s Premier seems to always respond like a deer caught in the headlights.
In this Cap-and-Trade announcement, Ontario could not ask for better partners in the deal than Quebec and California. They are two of the largest jurisdictions in North America with Cap-and-Trade in place. They have a wide breadth of industries and companies that can use the scheme and benefit by it. They know the objections and they have tried some solutions. There is no reason they would not share their experience.
And there is nothing wrong with coming up with some realistic made in Ontario solutions. You have the Ontario Conservatives whining about Cap-and-Trade being nothing more than a new tax and the federal Conservatives telling us they know better how to run it (sic). At least the Ontario New Democrats admitted that they did not understand it. That puts them even with about 90 per cent of the population.
But what were Wynne’s people thinking when they made the announcement with only vague promises of transparency and reinvestment of the money collected in environmental projects? This obviously did not include the suggestion that the Ontario program could be revenue neutral.
But nobody would believe that. What would be smarter would be to move up the electrification of the Greater Toronto Area GO trains. People would still bitch about the price of gas but they were going to do that anyway. What would be really smart would be to buy the electricity for the GO trains from Quebec with Cap-and-Trade money. When you are actually seen to be putting Cap-and-Trade money into elimination of greenhouse gas emissions and keeping the money in Canada, you get a chance at earning a few Brownie points.
And if Ontario really wants to take advantage of this opportunity, it could make a deal with Quebec to create the high-speed electric train corridor from Windsor to Quebec City. This would not only slow the amounts we are spending on fossil fuels for planes to handle more and more passengers on that route but would be a tremendous boon for business and tourism.
As you can see, Cap-and-Trade is an opportunity that smart politicians can take advantage of and stupid politicians can stumble over. We really need to stop electing the stupid ones.
-30-
Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]