environment

Tuesday December 11, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday December 11, 2018

Environmentalists fear provincial changes mean Greenbelt is open for development

Environmentalists and critics are accusing Premier Doug Ford of breaking a promise to protect the two-million-acre Greenbelt from development with changes they say endanger wildlife and drinking water, setting Ontario’s environmental protections back 40 years.

May 3, 2018

The Progressive Conservative government’s proposed changes to the planning act will undermine the province’s anti-sprawl smart growth plan, the Greenbelt Act, the Great Lakes and Lake Simcoe Protection acts and the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act, said Environmental Defence executive director Tim Gray.

The changes were announced Thursday as part of Bill 66, the Restoring Ontario’s Competitiveness Act.

It would allow municipalities to obtain provincial approval to use a new open-for-business zoning bylaw that would bypass some of the existing development requirements. The bylaw would only be available if the municipality could prove a development would create 50 jobs for places with populations under 250,000 or 100 jobs in larger municipalities. Of eight Ontario municipalities with more than 250,000 people, five are in the Toronto region.

“The aim is to have all provincial approvals in place within one year so qualifying businesses can begin construction,” said an emailed statement from a spokesperson of Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark.

March 9, 2005

Conditions would remain on the building, material and other design elements of the employment projects but municipalities would not be required to provide advance notice of the bylaw’s adoption.

The new tool is the kind of opening environmentalists have feared since Doug Ford was caught on video during the election campaign telling developers he would open up the Greenbelt if he became premier. He walked back the remarks after the video was released.

“There is no longer any rational approach to land designation so all areas that we’ve carefully considered being worthy of protection no longer have that protection. Anyone with a property just has to convince Queen’s Park to give them an exemption and (that’s) all it (needs) to go forward for development,” Gray said.

While the bill is driven by job creation, retail and residential components can be part of the projects which qualify for the bylaw’s use, he said. (Source: Toronto Star) 

 

Saturday December 1, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday December 1, 2018

Doug Ford’s environmental plan falls woefully short

Some people argue quibbling over semantics — the meaning of a word, phrase, sentence, or text — is trivial. Not always.

September 29, 2018

Consider the Ontario government’s just-announced plan to fight climate change. Environment Minister Rod Phillips says the plan doesn’t include a carbon tax.

Ontario’s environment watchdog — a position the government has announced is being cut — says the province’s plan will impose a carbon tax on industry despite government assurances it would not do so. She argues, credibly, that introducing mandatory standards on Ontario’s largest polluters does, in fact, put a price on carbon. Just not for everyone.

Environmental Commissioner Dianne Saxe is right, but don’t expect the government to admit that. Doug Ford will never admit to putting a price on carbon for industrial polluters, any more than he will admit his plan falls short of what is really needed. But both things are true.

October 12, 2016

No one is going to argue against tougher regulations for big polluters. But it’s worth remembering that all of the province’s worst polluters don’t produce as many harmful emissions as comes from buildings and transportation. And those sectors are not even noted in the plan.

Another key feature of the Ford plan offers incentives to the private sector to help Ontario meet its goals. How will those incentives be funded? By the public treasury, of course. So no matter how you slice it, taxpayers are funding industry that wants to become more energy efficient. Perhaps there’s nothing wrong with that. But even the most staunch conservative cannot deny that this amounts to taxpayers investing in greenhouse gas reduction. As they would, say, with a carbon tax.

The Ford government says this plan means the province will meet GHG reduction targets agreed upon by world leaders in the Paris Accord. Under that international agreement, Canada has committed to reducing emissions by 30 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030. Thanks to the efforts of the previous government in eliminating coal-fired generation, Ontario has already reduced emissions by 22 per cent. So if this plan could achieve an additional eight per cent reduction, Ford and friends could fairly claim Ontario has done its part, although in large part due to the previous Liberal government.

May 16, 2015

Here’s the rub for Ontario taxpayers. Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna is not impressed. She called the Ford plan “backwards” and suggested Ottawa will push ahead with plans to enforce a carbon tax.

Ford still insists he and other conservative premiers will fight the federal tax, even though constitutional legal experts say there is no chance they can win in court. Meanwhile, Ottawa has plans to send rebates to individual Ontario taxpayers drawn from carbon tax revenue, a move polling suggests will lesson or even defeat public resistance to the new tax.

So Ford spends $300 million on a no-win court battle. Ontarians get a carbon tax in addition to industry incentives, which taxpayers are also paying for. And don’t forget that Ford’s killing of the cap-and-trade program has cost, so far, $3.5 billion in public investment for infrastructure like schools.

Ford says he will ensure Trudeau is defeated in the next election. But the leader doing the most damage to the province and its taxpayers right now isn’t Trudeau. It’s Ford himself. (Source: Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Saturday September 29, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday September 29, 2018

Doug Ford kills Drive Clean emissions testing

The brakes are being slammed on the controversial Drive Clean auto emissions plan.

Premier Doug Ford announced Friday that as of April 1 of next year, the “outdated” mandatory program for passenger cars and trucks will lend.

July 11, 2018

Instead, the Progressive Conservative government will clamp down on big commercial polluters by enhancing the smog checks on transport trucks and other industrial vehicles.

“By ending Drive Clean tests and repairs for passenger vehicles, this government is reducing the burden on residents and families who own a car,” Ford said at a service garage on Martin Grove Rd.

“They no longer need to take time out of their days to take their vehicles in for unnecessary tests,” the premier said, adding the government will save $40 million a year.

That’s because the previous Liberal government eliminated the $30 test fees last year, but Queen’s Park still had to foot the tab.

Created by former Tory premier Mike Harris in 1999, Drive Clean has long been a bone of contention for motorists because most vehicles passed the emissions tests.

Successive PC and Liberal governments resisted the temptation to halt the program because it kept 335 tonnes of pollutants out of the air annually.

Cars and trucks are responsible for one third of all emissions of greenhouse gases, which contribute to climate change.

Green Leader Mike Schreiner said while “the Drive Clean program is no longer as relevant as it once was,” the new Tory government has done nothing to reduce pollution since taking office 12 weeks ago.

“When you look at the list of things this government has done on the environment file, all you see are cuts,” said Schreiner, pointing to the decision to exit the cap-and-trade climate accord with Quebec and California. (Source: Toronto Star) 

Friday July 20, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday July 20, 2018

Premier Doug Ford says he’ll join Saskatchewan’s lawsuit challenging carbon tax

July 18, 2014

Ontario will join Saskatchewan’s court case challenging the federal government’s right to impose a carbon tax on provinces.

Premier Doug Ford made the announcement Thursday alongside Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe at the Council of the Federation meeting of all 13 provincial and territorial leaders.

After a one-on-one meeting with Moe Wednesday night, Ford said the two premiers are on “exactly the same page.” He said Ontario will use “every tool at our disposal” to support Saskatchewan in its appeal of Ottawa’s carbon plan.

“Our provinces are strongest when we stand together and this will show unity and will send a clear message to the federal government,” said Ford, whose Progressive Conservative government has budgeted $30 million for the legal fight.

Amid growing discontent with the federal government’s plan to impose a carbon tax on provinces that do not come up with a carbon-pricing system it approves of, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will meet the premiers later this year to discuss the issue, sources told the Star.

On Thursday, a spokesperson for federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said Ontario is “willing to spend $30 million of taxpayer money on fighting climate leadership.

“The minister is disappointed to see the new government in Ontario has no plan to help families, schools and businesses reduce emissions, save money and create good jobs. Climate change doesn’t stop with a change in government,” said Caroline Thériault. (Source: Toronto Star) 

 

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Tuesday April 24, 2018

 

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 24, 2018

‘We need to rethink the entire plastics industry’: Why banning plastic straws isn’t enough

Britain announced this week that it plans to ban the sale of single-use plastic straws, as support for similar bans grows in Canada and around the world.

March 6, 2015

Advocates say such straw bans should help reduce plastic pollution that harms wildlife and ecosystems, but we need to monitor the effects of such policies. And they say bans may not be feasible for most of the plastics in our lives, so broader changes to the way we produce, consume and dispose of plastics are needed to make a real difference.

Jennifer Provencher, a postdoctoral researcher at Acadia University who studies the ingestion of plastic pollution by wildlife, said Britain’s ban is “an incredibly important step towards minimizing and using plastics more responsibly.”

She noted that single-use plastic items like straws and stir sticks are generally used only for a few minutes before they’re discarded, but can persist in the environment for centuries because plastics don’t typically decompose within a human lifetime.

Scientists estimate we’ve made 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic since the 1950s and 6.3 billion tonnes have already become waste.

More than 330,000 pieces of plastic and foam waste were picked off 2,800 kilometres of Canada’s shoreline by volunteers during beach cleanup events last year, including 17,654 straws — the ninth most common item found during cleanups supported by Ocean Wise and WWF-Canada. Worldwide, 409,087 straws and stirrers were picked up in beach cleanups around the world in 2017, the Ocean Conservancy reports.

Because of their small size, disposable straws are rarely recycled and often end up in the environment.

There, they can cause serious injuries to animals, as shown in a 2015 video that shows a straw being pulled out of a sea turtle’s nostril — the graphic, viral video has been viewed more than 21 million times. (Source: CBC)