VOCAL

In the summer of 2018 ClimateFast initiated the VOCAL campaign - Voices of Ontarians for Climate Accountability and Leadership to push the provincial government to be carbon accountable. With the introduction of Bill 4 to cancel Cap and Trade without public consultation and the province planning to sue the Federal government over carbon pricing, ClimateFast needed to encourage action!  The first action of our campaign was to urge deputations  oppose Bill 4 - The Cancellation of Cap and Trade Act. The selling of emission credits from Cap and Trade raised $2.4 billion. Money raised was used fund energy efficiency upgrades of hospitals, schools, and homes, renewable energy projects, public transit upgrades and improvements and TransformTO, the City of Toronto Climate Action Strategy.  We organized letter writing and demos held at Queen’s Park in August and October.

Ou next action was to encourage submissions to the government for its ‘made in Ontario’ climate plan consultations due Nov 16th.  We held a forum Nov 14th and many groups and individuals made submissions.

Now we are urging everyone to join a campaign for a real peoples climate plan for Ontario!  Let’s get VOCAL for climate action!

Click here for the Peoples’ Climate Plan letter!

VOCAL - Voices of Ontarians for Climate Accountability and Leadership is our new campaign pushing the provincial government to be carbon accountable. With the introduction of Bill 4 to cancel Cap and Trade without public consultation and the province planning to sue the Federal government over carbon pricing, ClimateFast needed to act.
 

The first action of our campaign is to oppose Bill 4 - The Cancellation of Cap and Trade Act. The selling of emission credits from Cap and Trade raised $2.4 billion. Money raised was used fund energy efficiency upgrades of hospitals, schools, and homes, renewable energy projects, public transit upgrades and improvements and TransformTO, the City of Toronto Climate Action Strategy.

TransformTO received $52 million from Cap and Trade to fund 10 programs that would cut 360,000 tonnes of carbon by 2031. They included replacing 30 diesel buses with battery powered electric buses, electrifying the City fleet of vehicles, building a system to recover methane from organic waste at Dufferin Organics Processing Facility and a number of renewable energy heating/cooling systems at St. Lawrence Market, Yonge and Eglinton, Liberty Village, Etobicoke Civic Centre Precinct and Scarborough. The loss of these funds is a huge blow to the city who has only set aside $3 million for TransformTO.

Many other green programs and renewable energy projects across Ontario will be cut, resulting in thousands of job losses and a cooling effect on the Ontario economy. Already the government has cancelled GreenON and the $100-million school repair fund. It has cancelled 758 renewable energy projects that were mostly small rooftop installations owned by farmers, school boards, municipalities and First Nations groups. The extent of these cuts are worrying businesses who are voicing concerns and putting off plans for creating more jobs.

Climatefast believes carbon should be priced. Doing so we will shift the cost of its emissions from the public to the producer/manufacturer prompting them to increase energy efficiency and switch to renewable sources of energy.

Climatefast calls on the government to stop subsidizing carbon pollution and lead in the transition to a green economy.