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Ontario’s Ford Government Guts Environmental Protections, Undermines Health Record
Doug Ford, Ontario Premier
While Ontario’s Ford government has proven to be an able defender of health in the face of COVID-19, it continues to be a profound threat to the environment, gutting established protections, hobbling climate action at every opportunity and, most recently, hamstringing the province’s environmental review process.
With the recent passage of Bill 197, which purports to support economic recovery from the pandemic, full environmental reviews will no longer be a default requirement for construction or industrial projects in Ontario, writes David Israelson in an op-ed for the Toronto Star.
With cabinet effectively now in charge of deciding whether a given piece of infrastructure— a road, gas plant, or water treatment facility, for example—needs a full environmental review, the province has reverted back to 1970 in terms of protecting the environment. And the law was rushed through, too, adds Israelson: “The Ford government waived the usual 30-day time for consulting the public before passing this legislation.”
Bill 197 is the latest in Ford’s barrage of regressive assaults against environmental health: from hollowing out of Ontario’s endangered species protection laws, to repealing laws that forced companies to keep a record of the toxins they use or create, to closing the office of the province’s environmental commissioner.
Source: Ontario’s Ford Government Guts Environmental Protections, Undermines Health Record – The Energy Mix
Newfoundland Turns Thumbs Down on Husky’s Offshore Oil Bailout Demand
With Husky Energy on the hunt for government bailouts for its C$2.2-billion West White Rose project off the Newfoundland coast, the provincial government is making it clear it doesn’t have any spare cash available to help the Calgary-based fossil out.
Husky announced a review of the project last week, after putting expansion plans on hold when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March. Senior Vice President Janet Annesley, a former chief of staff to then-federal natural resources minister Jim Carr, said the company had been pushing federal and provincial governments for “several months” to invest taxpayers’ dollars in the project. But “as a company, we have made it a priority to protect our balance sheet and preserve liquidity, which means it’s impossible to—on our own—fund the project to completion.”
On Tuesday, less than a week after Husky’s announcement and just eight days before the highly-anticipated federal Speech from the Throne, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey made it clear his minority Liberal government wouldn’t be coming to the company’s rescue.
“It’s time to start being honest,” he told media.
Source: Newfoundland Turns Thumbs Down on Husky’s Offshore Oil Bailout Demand – The Energy Mix
Husky Energy seems to be having their fair share of problems. They received some free giveaway money to oil companies. Yes, it was part of Jason Kenney’s 4.7 billion lottery. If you had an oil or gas company, you were automatically awarded a prize worth millions of dollars. Then they fired people and moved out of the country.
What the Arctic’s rapid transition into a ‘new climate’ looks like | CBC News
By 2100, the Arctic will likely be ice-free for three to four months of the year; fall and winter temperatures for most of the Arctic Ocean will be 16 to 28 degrees warmer; and rainfall will replace snowfall, with an extension of the rainy season by two to four months each year compared to conditions in the 20th century — if greenhouse gas emissions stay up.
In the next 10 to 40 years, if emissions continue at a high rate, we could see a new climate, statistically, for air temperatures in the fall and winter.
The study says these changes will have wide-ranging and enormous consequences that will affect ecosystems, water resource management, food planning and infrastructure.
Task force calls on federal government to spend billions on a ‘green recovery’ | CBC News
The task force came together in May and its 14 members include some former top political advisers — including Gerald Butts, ex-principal secretary to the prime minister, and former advisers to B.C. Premier John Horgan and Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
Its proposals also include new investments in clean energy, such as hydrogen, and increased production and promotion of zero-emission vehicles.
Lourie said many of the report’s ideas are “so straightforward” he can’t see why the federal government wouldn’t adopt them.