Now’s your first chance to affect Environmental Policy!

Since GreenPeace launched a court challenge against the withdrawal of Cap and Trade, the government has decided to fulfill its legal responsibility to hold an on-line consultation through the Environmental Registry.  This is a process for environmental defense that is mandated by the Environmental Bill of Rights.

We need to flood the registry with comments.  Just go to https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/013-3738.  There is a link to the bill itself, and a “Submit Comment” button

You will be asked to register for an account using your e-mail and a password.  You’ll need to access your email and respond to the message and then change your password (one time only).

After that you will be able to make a comment using the simple “Comment” field. Please keep your comments polite.

The Green Party’s recommendation is that Cap and Trade should be replaced by Carbon Fee and Dividend, after being phased out according to the rules that were in the original legislation, in order to maintain business confidence.

Carbon Fee and Dividend treats all carbon fuel producers equally by charging a “dumping fee” per kiloton of carbon in the product. The fees are collected in a separate account and distributed quarterly equally to all adult residents of Ontario automatically. They just divide the fee income by the number of adult residents, and that average amount goes into our bank accounts as a dividend. The government can’t use that income for any other purpose.

The fee does raise the price of fuel, as the producers will have to pass the cost on, but since they are in a competitive market, they may not pass the whole fee on.  Since rich people use a lot more carbon fuel than the poor, they pay out more than the poor, but the poor get the same averaged dividend, so they come out ahead.  They can use that income for whatever they need.  It will help them cover the increased cost of fuel.

By adding a dumping fee to the cost of fuel, we give the market a signal to find ways to use less fuel, and the consumption goes down.

To fully stimulate the move to a low-carbon economy, the Carbon Fee and Dividend policy needs to be accompanied by other policies which stimulate low-carbon innovation.

For more about Carbon Fee and Dividend: https://canada.citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-and-dividend/

For more about Green Party “Jobs, People, Planet” policy: https://gpo.ca/vision/