NDP sees new cars going electric by 2035
Goal is key to getting to net-zero carbon emissions in 30 years
Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats are unveiling an ambitious climate-change plan that would ensure all new vehicles sold in Ontario are electric by 2035, the Star has learned.
That goal is a key part of the NDP’s hope of achieving netzero carbon emissions in 2050, which is the federal Liberal government’s target, though Ottawa has yet to detail a road map.
The official opposition at Queen’s Park would also “pass a law banning all single-use plastics for non-medical uses by 2024” to cut waste in landfill sites.
With the provincial election less than 15 months away, Horwath is releasing her party’s environmental platform on Saturday.
The NDP leader said if she topples Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives on June 2, 2022, her government would create 100,000 new jobs over eight years through a massive building retrofitting program to save energy.
In its 26-page Green New Democratic Deal — the party’s third plank in a campaign platform that already includes policies on long-term care and affordable housing — the NDP also promises to return Ontario to a cap-and-trade system for reducing carbon emissions.
Ford withdrew the province from its cap-and-trade alliance with Quebec and California in 2018 even though it generated $1.9 billion annually to fund environmental initiatives like home and school retrofits and subsidizing electric cars.
Under cap-and-trade, businesses have emission limits — or caps — and those who pollute less can sell — or trade — credits for these to polluters. Caps are lowered over time to curb emissions, creating an economic incentive to cut pollution.
While Ford scrapped subsidies of up to $14,000 for electric cars, which sent sales plummeting, Horwath said the NDP would set targets for zero-emission vehicles sales of 15 per cent by 2025, 45 per cent by 2030, and 100 per cent by 2035.
Mindful of the previous Liberal government’s public-relations problems when taxpayers subsidized six-figure electric Porsches and Teslas, the New Democrats’ “strong incentives” would exclude “luxury vehicles.”
Households would be given $600 to install electric vehicle charging stations and the building code would again require new homes to have built-in chargers, a requirement the Tories cancelled in 2019.
As well, the NDP would aim at “completely electrifying government fleets by 2030” and work with municipal transit systems to electrify buses and trains by 2040, including the replacement of GO Transit’s diesel rolling stock.
“The climate crisis is the greatest threat our world faces, but it’s also an incredible opportunity … to shift to a more sustainable job-rich and just economy,” Horwath said.
The New Democrats would revive the independent environment watchdog Ford controversially merged into the auditor general’s office two years ago in a cost-cutting exercise.
“We will restore the full and independent powers of the environmental commissioner, and empower them with clear oversight powers over the capand-trade program and its revenues, to keep us on track in our goal to achieve our emission reduction targets,” the party manifesto said.
The party would also undo Ford’s much-criticized decision to axe an initiative to plant 50 million trees and aim toward planting one billion trees by 2030.
“Planting trees is one of the most cost-effective ways to sequester carbon. This project alone could remove and sequester a significant amount of carbon, helping Ontario achieve our net-zero targets,” the party said.
In a bid to create jobs and save electricity and fossil fuels, the NDP would retrofit at least five per cent of Ontario buildings each year, claiming “every $1 invested in energy conservation generates $4 in economic activity.”
“By investing in retrofits, between 2022 and 2030 Ontario could see more than $15.2 billion added to our annual (gross domestic product), which should create about 100,000 good jobs.”
Horwath’s party would establish a new Youth Climate Corps to “give young Ontarians the opportunity to get hands-on experience restoring and enhancing Ontario’s natural landscape, while gaining knowledge, skills, a fair wage, and a fee credit towards post-secondary education.”
The teens would conscripted to help “rehabilitate our wetlands, forests and vegetation.”
By releasing planks of their campaign platform more than a year before the election, the New Democrats are following the successful strategy of former premiers Mike Harris and Dalton McGuinty.
Harris’s Tories launched their tax-cutting Common Sense Revolution in 1994 while McGuinty’s Liberals unveiled their cornerstone education platform in 2002.
In both instances, those opposition parties had time to promote their promises well before election day.
While the NDP lags Ford’s Tories in recent public-opinion polls and the Liberals have a new leader in Steven Del Duca, Horwath’s party is optimistic its policies will be popular with progressives.
While some environmentally conscientious voters have defected to Mike Schreiner’s Greens in recent elections, the New Democrats believe they can shore up support there with an aggressive climate plan.
“The climate crisis is the greatest threat our world faces, but it’s also an incredible opportunity … to shift to a more sustainable job-rich and just economy.” ANDREA HORWATH NDP LEADER