We’re driving in the wrong direction

Whatever happened to climate change? Sky-high gas prices happened, that’s what.

How else to explain why an issue the United Nations says poses an existential threat to human life on the planet has fallen far down the list of concerns for Ontario voters?

As recently as last September, voters told pollsters the environment was their No. 1 issue. But in the current provincial election, those same voters list health care, the cost of living, housing and the economy as their top concerns. The environment and climate change trail far behind, with only eight per cent putting them first.

This is certainly disappointing, but it comes as no great surprise. When the economy is humming along, people are willing to think about longer-term challenges like the climate. But when the economy hits a speed bump, and especially when the price of energy spikes, immediate pocketbook issues come to the fore.

Who’s thinking about the climate when a tank of gas runs $100 or more? But this kind of short-termism does let politicians who aren’t truly committed to the fight against climate change off the hook.

That’s what is happening right now in Ontario, but it shouldn’t. The Ford government’s record on environmental issues is terrible, and it should be front and centre as voters decide who to trust with their vote on June 2.

It may be hard to remember after the past two years of the pandemic, but the first move by the Progressive Conservatives when they took power in 2018 was to cancel the Liberal government’s plan to reduce carbon emissions through a cap-and-trade system. Then they fought the feds through the courts on the issue, spending millions and eventually losing in the Supreme Court.

As environmentalist Mark Winfield wrote recently for Torstar, that was just the appetizer. The government also cancelled some 758 renewable power contracts, axed the office of the provincial environmental commissioner, watered down rules aimed at protecting endangered species, slashed funding for conservation efforts, rewrote planning rules to favour developers, and weakened regulations around industrial water pollution.

Oh, and it’s driving full speed ahead with plans to build Highway 413 across the northern GTA, paving hundreds of hectares of farmland and Greenbelt along the way. It’s pushing other major highway projects as well.

It’s not just green activists and editorialists who have viewed all this with justified alarm. Ontario’s auditor general warned in 2020 that the government wasn’t taking enough action to meet its own targets on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. She followed that up the next year by finding that the government was failing to meet requirements to consult citizens on major environmental decision-making.

It’s a sorry record, and on current trends it’s likely to get worse. As Greenhouse gas emissions from Ontario’s energy grid are set to soar by more than 400 per cent over the next two decades as a direct result of the cancellation of those renewable power contracts. This is according to official forecasts from the Crown corporation that manages Ontario’s energy grid, the Independent Electricity System Operator.

The reason is that Ontario is scheduled to shut down its nuclear reactor in Pickering, which accounts for 16 per cent of power consumed in the province, in 2025. With the clean renewables no longer available, the province will have to ramp up its natural gas plants to supply the difference.

As Jack Gibbons, chair of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, told Torstar: “We’re going totally in the wrong direction.”

All the opposition parties are offering credible plans to reverse course and take environmental/climate change issues seriously.

But the two main opposition parties know which way the wind is blowing. They know voters are focused on pocketbook issues, especially rising prices.

Ultimately it’s up to voters themselves. If they toss environmental priorities aside every time the economic outlook darkens they can expect politicians, at least many of them, to do likewise. The alternative is to take the longer view, and realize saving a few dollars now at the expense of the future is a bet that won’t pay off.