While many are willing to criticize Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, she does have an ‘Action Plan’ to do something about climate change. And, yes, it is easy to criticize. The plan might not be perfect. It is complex. It has many components. It involves a cap-and-trade program for carbon and new taxes. It also promises new initiatives in electric vehicles and new energy sources.
But when the opposition and news media claim that Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government wants to spend billions on her new climate change action plan without proving that this plan is the right one, how would you expect her to answer? While the plan itself seems to be a logical progression of the approach taken by her predecessor Liberal Dalton McGuinty, nobody has proved the success of that program either.
The only difference we see is that anticipated costs for the new plan are to be covered by the cap-and-trade program directed at industries creating the most carbon. Since Canada’s energy sector contributes over 80 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions, it means that users of gasoline for their automobiles, trucks or farm equipment and people who heat their homes with natural gas will be paying most of the bills.
But that means we all pay, in the food, goods and services we buy. We pay it in energy usage because nuclear, solar, wind and water cannot always meet the needs. And bicycles are a poor solution to transportation in the Canadian winter. Cities need light rail and subways. Commuters need electric rail and buses. Intercity trains need electrifying. Delivery vans and trucks need new forms of electricity storage.
What Ontario and other jurisdictions need is a clear plan. They need a route to the future. And we need the politicians who can imagine that future and provide the leadership. There is no point in criticizing one party’s plan unless another party’s plan makes more sense. And where are those plans? Where are their strategies for tomorrow?
The Conservatives and New Democrats in Ontario need to stop criticizing and realize that if they have no plan, they must not and should not be given control of the future. They can always disagree with details of the government plan but generalities are a waste of time. We need action now to built the better future we all want.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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