Climate change is nature's tax on everything

April 1, 2019

TORONTO — Mike Schreiner made the following statement on the day that federal carbon pricing came into effect in Ontario.

“Doug Ford’s taxpayer funded scare campaign to sabotage climate solutions confirms that Ford has no shame in wasting your money to play political games.

Our future is on the line as Ford recklessly puts ideology before evidence.

Climate change is nature’s tax on everything, costing Ontarians $1.2 billion in insurable losses last year alone.

The Premier’s actions not only threaten the livability of the planet, Ford is also doing damage to our economy. Ripping up clean energy contracts, attacking electric vehicles and making pollution free tells the world that Ontario is closed for business in the $26 trillion clean economy.

Some of the top performing economies around the world have a price on pollution. BC leads Canada, Sweden is near the top in the EU, and California in near the top in the US. All have a price on pollution.

80% of the world’s economists support pollution pricing as the cheapest and most effective way to reduce emissions.

Facts matter, yet the Premier is obsessed with deceiving people with his economic doomsday fantasies that have no basis in reality.

I am disturbed by media reports that the Ford government will waste millions of taxpayer dollars on a TV advertising blitz to sabotage climate solutions. This money should be going to retrofit homes, to create jobs in the clean economy and to prepare communities for the impacts of climate change, which already cost the average household more than $350 last year.

Polling shows a majority of Ontarians already support pollution pricing, yet the Premier is using their own money to convince them to change their minds. At the same time he is deliberately covering up the fact that most families will be better off financially from the pollution price rebate.

As the climate crisis worsens, we will look back in shame at this government’s all-out warfare to sabotage climate solutions with taxpayer money.

The only thing that people should be afraid of is Doug Ford’s ‘do-nothing’ climate policies and the legacy they will leave for our children and grandchildren.”

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