Ontario Election 2007: And They Are Off
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 09. 5.07
Do voters really care about the environment? In Ontario, Canada it is the official start of the first fixed-date election. Until now, the Government got to pick the date and drop the writ whenever they felt they had the biggest advantage; then they passed a law fixing the date every four years, which takes away a big advantage for the ruling party. Ontario is big, with almost 40% of Canada's population and 52% of its manufacturing, and Provinces have more power than States do, controlling, among other things, their own energy resources. Another difference in a parliamentary system is that the leader is a sitting member of the house, unlike a Governor who runs on a separate ballot, so citizens don't get to vote for the leader, they have to vote for their local member of Parliament. So much for civics, lets look at the parties- they are all claiming to be green and driving biofueled buses, who is the greenest of them all? Fair and Balanced coverage follows:
Dalton McGuinty and the Liberal Party
Liberal Leader and Premier Dalton McGuinty with Environment Minister Laurel Broten
I have to say, the Liberals have done good. They backtracked on their election promise to close our coal fired power plants by 2007, but have a plan to close them by 2014. There is a bit more nuclear than we like, but the nukes are already supplying 37% of our power. But they are also banning incandescents, bringing in green licence plates, and paying pots of money for renewable energy. On other fronts, they introduced deposits on wine and liquor bottles, and brought in much needed legislation to save the green belt around Toronto.
Environment Minister Laurel Broten sets my teeth on edge whenever she opens her mouth to spout jargon like my favourite quote, "an impactful multifaceted approach. We have all hands on deck to build a lesser footprint and incentivize the public" and is a hypocrite to boot, but she follows orders, and that counts for a lot in our system.
McGuinty also gets hugs for one of the smartest quotes of the year:
"Somebody recently said that when it comes to dealing with climate change and environmental issues generally, it would be a mistake to look for a silver bullet and we should be deploying silver buckshot."
Tomorrow: John Tory and the Progressive Conservatives
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- Tom Friedman Can't Make Up His Mind
- What's Next? The Environmental Movement Post-Election
- Quote of the Day: Arthur Manuel on How Indigenous Peoples Subsidize Canadian Forest Industry
- Don’t Call it a Wind Farm, It’s an EcoPower Centre: Canada’s Largest Wind Project (200 MW) Opens
I don't get the supporting image to this article - is that a x across a bunch of snow mobiles? some kind of sub-concious dig at snow mobiles and off-roaders?
The Liberal Ontario Government is riding the "green fan wagon" because it has become the Hot Ticket Issue, also since the federal liberal sponorship scandal they've got to win back some trust. If the Liberal goverment is so "Green" than why didn't they support alternative energies earlier, or install environmental education programs in schools, or hey if their SOOOOO green why is ontario getting several new mulitmillion dollar nuclear power station? I could think of lots of ways to use even one million dollars to help the state of our environment and believe me it doesnt involve the production of untreatable and undisposable nuclear wastes.
One last item each province is in control of its own envionrmental laws, and is allowed to dictate how the environment is treated almost absolutely. If anyone from ontario is reading this I urge you to seriously look into to voting for the green party. With more greens on our provincal side maybe they can turn what the few good things the liberals are doing into much bigger and better things.
by far i believe the most important vote on election day wont be for premier but for the voting system referendum.
If you want your votes for the green party to count for something other than helping the conservatives vote for election reform, vote for proportional voting. For some reason the CBC has run lots of the negatives on proportional voting to few advocating it. Most people will have no idea what it is when they get to the ballot box.
Im voting green myself but more importantly for proportional voting!