Weird weather plays a role in provincial election campaign

It’s been a wacky year for weather so far and more of the same is in the forecast.

Prognosticators at The Weather Network say Peterborough can expect a hotter than usual early summer, followed by a cooler than usual late summer.

Long-term weather predictions are notoriously suspect, but it would be hard not to notice that summer, and a hot summer at that, seems to have arrived in May.

That comes after early March felt like June, only to be followed by a long cold snap and major ice storm that made mid-April feel like January. In a different calendar year we would have had a white Easter.

That string of unusual climate events prompted a lot of references to jumping straight from winter to summer. Now the talk could be about jumping straight from winter to July.

So, is this evidence of climate change?

The scientific answer is that no short-term weather pattern in one area of the world proves climate change is upon us. However, it does plug into the undeniable larger pattern of extreme weather events and changing seasonal characteristics that are part of the reality of a changing climate.

Even Doug Ford is on board. During Sunday’s Ontario election debate, the Progressive Conservative leader said he not only believes in climate change, he accepts that man-made factors are responsible.

But at that point the man who might be Ontario’s premier after June 7 departs from conventional scientific views. Ford says carbon taxes, the current Liberal government’s capand-trade system in particular but any carbon tax, are not part of the solution.

Ford has a point regarding cap-and-trade. It’s not the best way to put a price on carbon. A simple carbon tax like the one implemented in B.C. would be more effective and less open to manipulation.

However, it makes no sense to acknowledge that people contribute to climate change when they burn fossil fuels and then deny the effectiveness of measures that are proven to reduce carbon use by making it more expensive.

On the current campaign trail the carbon tax issue leads to another hot-button topic: the price of electricity and electricity policy in general.

Ford also said during Sunday's debate that Ontario has the highest electricity prices in the world. That wasn’t true even before the Liberal government’s panicky reduction of home energy costs and it’s less true now.

A year ago an average Toronto homeowner was paying 16.32 cents per kiloWatt hour. That was high, for sure. But it was a bit lower than in Charlottetown, PEI and substantially below rates in U.S. cities like New York (29.67), San Francisco (31.05) and Boston (28.45).

New Toronto Hydro rates that came into effect this month range from 13.2 cents for peak hours to 6.5 cents during off-peak.

The Conservatives have pledged to reduce rates another 8 per cent. What they haven’t explicitly said is how that lost revenue will be made up. The Liberals put their latest rate cut on the backs of future electricity users, which is bad policy. Ford will have to do the same, or take the money out of current tax revenues.

Using higher taxes to hold down electricity rates isn’t a terrible idea, but the Conservatives should come clean on the details of how they would do it.

‘... the Progressive Conservative leader said he not only believes in climate change, he accepts that man-made factors are responsible.’