Wake up and smell the smoke, Mr. Premier – it’s time to get serious about the climate emergency

June 7, 2023

QUEEN'S PARK — Ontario Greens leader and Guelph MPP, Mike Schreiner, released the following statement in response to the air quality warnings currently in force across much of southern and eastern Ontario.

“The World Health Organization calls climate change the greatest health threat of this century – and we are seeing the proof in the skies above Ontario this week.

Summer is still weeks away and wildfires are already raging across the country. There are currently almost 50 forest fires burning in Ontario alone.

As the climate emergency worsens, weather-related disasters like forest fires will only become more frequent and more severe and their health impacts will only become more deadly.

Today, people with lung disease, like asthma, heart disease, older people, children, pregnant people and those who work outside are at especially high risk of experiencing health effects from the smoke in the atmosphere.

Meanwhile, the Ford government ploughs ahead with its plan to ramp up fossil gas generation, adding to the air pollution that causes 7,000 premature deaths a year in Ontario and pumping more climate-wrecking carbon into the atmosphere.

While other provinces and countries move full-speed ahead to switch to renewable energy, Doug Ford is headed in the opposite direction, making Ontario’s electricity grid dirtier – to the detriment of the health and the economic wellbeing of Ontarians.

It’s time for Doug Ford to wake up and smell the smoke and realize that his anything-but-renewables energy policy is jeopardizing the health and prosperity of Ontarians.”

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