Ontario environmental watchdog pans government move to scrap cap and trade
TORONTO — Ontario’s environmental watchdog criticized the Progressive Conservative government on Tuesday for dismantling the province’s cap-and-trade system without putting in an effective climate change program to replace it.
In a report released Tuesday, environmental commissioner Dianne Saxe said the government’s decision could reverse the progress Ontario has made in cutting greenhouse gas emissions over more than a decade.
“Ontario has gutted most of its climate change programs,” she said in a statement. “Most of the cap and trade money was funding energy efficiency programs in Ontario communities — in schools, in public housing, transit and hospitals, for example — that would have reduced (emissions) and saved millions of dollars in energy costs.”
“Dismantling a climate change law that was working is bad for our environment, bad for our health and bad for business,” she said.