One of a series of editorials on issues facing Ontario’s voters:

The big issues in the Ontario election, so the pollsters tell us, are hydro costs, taxes, health care and the economy. The environment and climate change, they say, aren’t top of mind for most voters.

That may be so, but Ontarians ignore these issues at their peril. Whatever other failings they may have, the Liberals made impressive progress on environmental issues during their decade and a half in office. It would be tragic to see those gains halted or, even worse, reversed.

That’s a real risk with Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives leading among decided voters. Ford has made clear he cares little for the environment and vows to abolish the Liberal government’s cap-and-trade plan, a serious effort to fight climate change by putting a price on carbon.

Putting Ford in the premier’s chair, in short, would be a huge step back in the battle to head off the potentially devastating effects of climate change. And not just for Ontario, but for all of Canada.

Environment is one of the areas the Liberals can be proudest of when they look back over their years in office, under both Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne.

They phased out coal-generation of electricity, cutting carbon emissions and bringing enormous health benefits in the form of cleaner air. They established the Green Belt around the Toronto/Hamilton mega-region. And they set up the pioneering cap-and-trade scheme with California and Quebec. These were big, bold moves.

Of course, the Liberals stumbled as well. Their green energy program has made little progress at great cost and they bowed to local political pressure and relocated gas plants, at yet more cost. For all this they are paying a huge political cost.

But consider the alternatives before Ontario voters.

The New Democrats would keep cap-and-trade. Disappointingly, though, they have not made environmental issues much of a priority in their election platform. Presumably they’re reading those polls and believe voters have other things on their minds.

The real danger to progress in this area, as in so many others, comes from the PCs.

Under Doug Ford they’ve abandoned even the pretence of caring about the environment. They have no published platform on these issues. And judging by what Ford has had to say so far, it’s clear that protecting the environment would be at best an after-thought for a PC government, at worst an obstacle to accomplishing his goals.

In fact, Ford has used environmental issues as a populist punching-bag, threatening to rip wind turbines “right out of the ground.” If he does get into the premier’s office he’ll find that terminating green energy contracts will cost taxpayers dearly. But regardless of reality, his rhetoric does underline a mindset hostile to the very notion of environmental progress.

Consider his positions on two of the most pressing issues: reducing carbon usage and protecting the province’s forests, lakes, wetlands and farmland.

On the first, Ford has said he’ll abolish the Liberals’ cap-and-trade carbon pricing system, which is designed to reduce carbon emissions by 15 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.

That’s significant enough, but the program has other benefits as well. It aims to reduce the province’s carbon footprint by funnelling all money raised from emitters into environmentally friendly projects such as home and business energy retrofits, rebates to encourage purchase of electric vehicles, and clean technology projects for large polluters.

The plan has raised $2.4 billion to date, which Environment Minister Chris Ballard says taxpayers would have to pay back if Ford dismantles the program. No word from Ford on where that money would come from.

It would be easier to understand his position if cap-and-trade was a job-killer, as critics suggest. But it isn’t. In fact, Ontario added 155,000 new jobs in 2017, the first year of the program. That’s not a fluke. California has outpaced the rest of the United States in economic growth since it launched its cap-and-trade market in 2012.

Ford makes things even worse by also ruling out any form of carbon tax. His predecessor as PC leader, Patrick Brown, at least promised to bring in such a tax and give the money back to taxpayers.

Ford’s position is deeply problematic since the federal government long ago said it will impose its own tax on any province that doesn’t put a price on carbon starting in 2019. If a PC government refuses, it will set up a confrontation with Ottawa that will either mean Ontarians end up paying a tax anyway, or the national effort to limit carbon emissions will suffer a heavy blow.

On the issue of protecting the province’s lands and waterways, Ford has also stumbled spectacularly.

Most notably, readers will remember the backlash that erupted after the Liberals released video of the PC leader telling developers he’d “open a big chunk” of the Greenbelt around the GTA and Hamilton for new single-family homes.

Though Ford quickly flip-flopped on that pandering promise to developers, it was too late. He had made it clear where his heart lies. And it’s not with protecting a vital part of our environmental heritage.

Contrast that with the approach taken by the Liberals. Back in December they were consulting on a plan to expand the Greenbelt by adding another 345,000 hectares from Simcoe County to Niagara. And in their spring budget they promised $15 million more over three years to protect lands and waters.

These aren’t big vote-getters at this point, given the overwhelming desire for “change” at Queen’s Park. But they are substantive policies that address some of the biggest long-term issues that anyone concerned about Ontario’s future should have.

The only thing Doug Ford’s PCs have demonstrated is that they don’t take any of this seriously.

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