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York-Simcoe MPP Caroline Mulroney’s recent bulk email to constituents begins, "By ensuring our provincial government has respect for taxpayers like you…"
Here's my response:
Dear Caroline,
I'm afraid I'm not feeling respected, or even heard.
Here's how your government has spent some of our tax dollars: $231 million scrapping green energy projects, $30 million fighting a federal "carbon tax" (and losing), $5 million to former cap-and-trade participants, not to mention a loss of $3 billion in revenue by scrapping cap and trade.
I'm no fan of pay-to-pollute, but at least under Cap and Trade, that money was reinvested into clean technology. These days, industries pollute for free!
Now your government is planning to spend $25 billion building highways that will enable sprawl on former farmland and wetlands. Who's going to pay for the new infrastructure to service that sprawl? Municipalities and taxpayers. And who will be able to afford those former Greenbelt homes and the cars necessary to access them?
The latest UN report on climate change states that "a livable future for all is possible if we take urgent climate action." Electric vehicles alone do not constitute "urgent climate action" — especially if the necessary minerals are mined by digging up peatlands and releasing more carbon than the switch to electric would save.
The UN also says that "our strongest natural defence against climate change is biodiversity."
How can your government claim to respect taxpayers when it dismantles programs that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and refuses to meet the demand for housing in a way that preserves biodiversity and promotes greener infrastructure, transportation and building codes?
I'll feel respected when your government starts taking climate change seriously.
Susan Sheard
Georgina
