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Friday October 16, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday October 16, 2020

Make Canada’s electric vehicle bet pay off

The federal and Ontario governments have just rolled the dice — using taxpayers’ money — in hopes of hitting it big in the electric vehicle industry.

November 22, 2019

After anteing up $295 million apiece, they recently convinced Ford Motor Co. of Canada to commit about $1.4 billion of its own money to start manufacturing these zero-emission machines and the batteries that power them at its Oakville plant by 2025. 

It’s a smart, and admirably non-partisan, gamble on the part of these governments that could preserve thousands of Canadian auto-sector jobs and grow the economy while doing something just as important — fighting climate change.

But if they want this steep, $590-million bet to pay off, they have to do more than just put up money. It’s not as easy as saying if you build it they’ll buy it. 

While there are plenty of hybrid and fully electric vehicles on the market, only about 0.5 per cent of the 23 million passenger vehicles on Canadian roads are electric. There are strong reasons more Canadians haven’t leapt behind the wheel of an EV, reasons Ottawa and Queen’s Park need to address.

October 3, 2020

For starters, electric vehicles are generally more expensive to buy than the ones driven by the internal combustion engines that are doing so much to heat up this planet. When it comes to range, most EVs can’t travel nearly as far on a full-charge as their gasoline-driven rivals on a full tank, though the gap is decreasing. And the number of electric recharging stations is pitifully small — just a fraction of the number of gas stations out there.

These negatives shouldn’t make anyone a naysayer about the future of Canada’s electric car and battery industry. It is, in fact, visionary for our nation to embrace what will surely be the technology of the future. Unfortunately there are no givens in the global auto sector and too often good intentions on the parts of governments and even industrial gurus don’t pan out. 

February 27, 2020

Canada badly lags behind other countries, such the United States, Germany, Japan and especially China in making EVs. When the current federal Liberal government asked every single EV manufacturer in the world to move to Canada, the answer was consistently no.

But there’s an upside to the fact that Ford Motor’s first zero-emission vehicles won’t roll of the line in Oakville for another five years. That gives the federal and Ontario governments a half decade to ensure their — your — investment ultimately pays off.

Canada needs recharge stations, lots of them. Establishing and paying for more of this essential infrastructure should be part of the federal Liberals’ plan for rebuilding post-pandemic Canada. 

Perhaps they could partner with existing gas stations. If their owners give the matter some thought they’ll realize they, too, have a stake in transitioning away from petroleum-based fuels.

Programs could be established or beefed up across the country to help homeowners as well as condo and apartment complexes, to install their own recharging facilities. In addition, the federal government should review its current rebate program for people buying electric vehicles to determine if it’s working and even if it should be enhanced.

Finally, attention must also be paid to the Canadian mining companies that produce the minerals, such as cobalt, nickel and lithium, that will go into the electric vehicle batteries. Do they require help in meeting what could be a significant new demand?

When it comes to electric vehicles, Ottawa and Queen’s Park may feel that, as Ford Motor once proclaimed, they have “a better idea.” They need to back it up. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Friday November 22, 2019

November 22, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday November 22, 2019

Doug Ford government spent $231M to scrap green energy projects

Provincial documents show the Ford government spent more than $230 million to cancel renewable energy projects that included a partially-built wind farm in a cabinet minister’s riding.

December 1, 2018

The spending was revealed Tuesday in question period by the opposition NDP, who accused the Ford government of throwing away money on scrapping energy projects as the Liberal government did earlier in the decade.

The province’s public accounts for 2018-19 show spending of $231 million by the Ministry of Energy on unexplained “other transactions.”

October 19, 2018

Inquiries by an NDP researcher uncovered that these “other transactions” were “to fulfil a government commitment to wind down renewable energy contracts” including the White Pines wind farm in Prince Edward County.

Premier Doug Ford promised that electricity ratepayers would not be on the hook for scrapping the wind farm, which was one of the first acts of his government after taking power in June 2018.

“Wasting $231 million to cancel hydro contracts is the sort of thing the previous Liberal government did during the gas plant scandal,” NDP energy critic Peter Tabuns said on Tuesday.

The associate minister of energy, Bill Walker, said the province didn’t need the power from the White Pines project but didn’t deny the cost of the cancellation.

“This municipality was an unwilling host from day one. They did not want the turbines. We did the right thing,” said Walker in question period.

October 12, 2012

Walker pointed to actions of the previous Liberal governments, whose moves to cancel gas plants in Mississauga and Oakville ended up costing upwards of $1 billion, according to the province’s auditor general.  

“I’ll take fair criticism for decisions that were made when we were in government,” John Fraser, the Liberal interim leader, said Tuesday at Queen’s Park. “But I also believe that this government’s going down the wrong path with energy and electricity, and tearing up these contracts was the absolute wrong thing to do.”

The White Pines wind farm is in the riding of Todd Smith, the PC MPP for Bay of Quinte and the government’s minister of children, community and social services.

“This is a project that residents of Prince Edward County had been fighting against since it was proposed,” Smith told reporters Tuesday.  

Four out of the nine turbines approved for the project were built in 2018. After the election, the new government put a stop-work order on construction. Crews are currently working to dismantle those four turbines.

“For this government to rip up contracts and literally rip wind turbines out of the ground is a huge waste of money and makes absolutely no sense,” said Green party Leader Mike Schreiner. (CBC) 

 

Saturday November 9, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday November 9, 2019

Doug Ford government tries for a reboot with its latest fiscal plan

Premier Doug Ford’s government is listening and Finance Minister Rod Phillips really wants you to know that.

November 1, 2019

“We listened to Ontarians,” said Phillips in a news conference after delivering the government’s budget update on Wednesday afternoon.

“We listened to what they thought was working well in the plan that we had, and we listened to the concerns that they had,” Phillips added.

“So you can expect this is a government that has listened and is going to continue to listen, and make sure that we make adjustments as we go along.”

The fiscal tally of all that listening is found in the pages of Phillips’s fall economic statement. The document accounts for the government’s recent backtracks, updating the budget from the $163.4 billion spending plan tabled in April by Vic Fedeli, whom Ford dumped as finance minister two months later.

August 21, 2019

The fall economic statement is part of the Ford government’s attempts to portray itself as new and improved, striking a new tone, turning over a new leaf. The budget update tries to do this by highlighting the spending cuts on which the government reversed course and recasting them as spending increases.

Technically, it’s true the PCs are increasing program spending by $1.3 billion from the April budget. In reality, this is simply putting some spending cuts that didn’t happen back on the government’s books.

Does a reversal of a spending cut equal a spending increase? NDP leader Andrea Horwath doesn’t think so.  

May 23, 2019

The fiscal update reflects merely “a softening of their previous cuts, a backtracking on some of their cuts, a delaying of some of their cuts, but really the cuts are still coming,” Horwath said Wednesday on CBC’s Power and Politics.

The new finance minister hasn’t fundamentally changed the budget that the old finance minister put in place, and acknowledged as much in his news conference.

“This isn’t about grand gestures,” said Phillips. “It’s about incremental important changes that make life easier for people.”

The update shows — just as the April budget did — that nearly every ministry is undergoing spending cuts this year from 2018-19 levels. Nominal increases in spending on health and education are not increases in real-dollar terms when population growth and inflation are considered. (CBC)

 

 

Friday November 1, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday November 1, 2019

Can Doug Ford learn from his mistakes?

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has ended the longest legislative break in a quarter century and his own political exile. He admits his government has made mistakes and vows to find a new “tone” going forward.

May 29, 2019

“Governing is always hard,” says Ford. “We all mature in the role that we’re in and you just try not to make the same mistakes.”

Far be it for this page to disagree with Ford on any of that. Or his stated desire to “learn by your mistakes.”

His government has been a disaster, and the way Ontario voters cast their ballots in last week’s federal election strongly suggests they also know it.

But putting the wrecking ball that has been the hallmark of the Ford government’s first 16 months down to exuberance is far too simplistic.

The early autism cuts and cronyism scandal, for example, were mistakes. But much of the chaos in everything from education to social services is not the result of haste or blundering. It flows from purposeful policy decisions to cut costs.

October 29, 2019

So as Ford seeks to reset his government the real question is what exactly he thinks are his “mistakes.” That his policies proved to be more unpopular with the people of Ontario than expected, or that they were the wrong direction in the first place?

If it’s the former, Ontarians can expect to see a slower pace of change with more effort put into finding support for the government’s cuts. If it’s the latter, and we hope it is, it might mean more than that.

Monday’s Question Period, though, didn’t bode well for the idea that the new and improved Ford government is about substance and not just style.

Ford welcomed back NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and thanked her for her questions. Then he launched into the same half-truths he’s always peddled.

On education, Ford said, the government is investing “more money than any government in the history of Ontario.” But per student funding — the primary means of funding schools — is down; some high school students are struggling to get the classes they need for university; and teachers’ unions, furious about job reductions, are set to take strike votes.

May 14, 2019

On Ford’s appalling taxpayer-funded court battle over the federal carbon pricing plan, he continued to claim people “just can’t afford it.” He ignored, as usual, the fact that most people will get back more than they pay because of the rebates that come with it.

It’s obvious that Ford needs to reset his government’s agenda.

At this point, no one, not even his own Progressive Conservative colleagues, can possibly know even what it is, given all the U-turns and waffles over the last few months.

Ford happily blew up Toronto city council mid-election, supposedly to create better and more efficient municipal government and vowed to extend such thinking to other regions. Then, on Friday, after months of consultation and study the government abandoned that idea; instead, it offered municipalities more money to find efficiencies and improve services.

May 4, 2019

The province has finally moved to enact legislation passed by the former Liberal government to ban the promotion of vaping products in convenience stores but hasn’t done the same thing on labour reforms needed to protect temporary workers. It has reduced its deep cuts to child care, but not for legal aid. On carbon pricing Ford changed his mind two months ago, only to change it back again last week.

How is anyone to know what this government stands for now?

At the top of the Ford government’s list of legislative priorities is “restoring trust and accountability in government.”

After promising efficiencies but delivering devastating cuts that will be a long road.

And if Ford really wants to avoid repeating his mistakes, this legislative session needs to be about more than softer words. (Toronto Star) 

 

Wednesday August 21, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday August 21, 2019

Ford government unveils revised cuts to funding for municipalities

May 23, 2019

Local taxpayers will feel the pinch of higher costs for new daycare spaces and public health programs under funding changes from Premier Doug Ford’s government, critics say, with Mayor John Tory warning of “significant” impacts on Toronto’s finances.

The province unveiled its revised plan Monday, just three months after backing down on retroactive and controversial cuts to public health, daycare and ambulance services in the face of stiff criticism from Tory and other leaders after municipal budgets were set for the year.

“We recognize our government moved quickly when we came into office,” Ford told about 2,000 delegates at the annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference in Ottawa. “But we’ve listened to you.”

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath suggested Ford’s listening skills have not improved.

“This morning, Doug Ford confirmed that the countdown to devastating cuts is on,” she said in a statement. “He’s slashing things like public health and child care, things that keep families safe and healthy, and throwing the problems his cuts will create at the feet of municipal councils.”

The changes take effect in January, including a move first announced in the provincial government’s spring budget to make municipalities pay 20 per cent of the cost of new daycare spaces — which had been fully funded by the province.

Carolyn Ferns with the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care said the change will be challenging for municipalities that agreed to expand child care in their communities on the understanding that Queen’s Park would pick up the full cost.

“It’s going to create a chill for any municipality thinking about expanding child care,” Ferns said. “If suddenly they can be on the hook for more of the cost — and with all the other budget pressures they are facing under this government — they are just not going to do it.” (Toronto Star)