Exercising tools of democracy

 In Letters, Opinion

Editor:
A couple of weeks ago I wrote in these pages urging everyone who cares about the environment to write, phone, or email your elected representatives demanding them to act on the issues that matter to you. I have been emailing Doug Ford on a daily basis. Here is an email I sent in response to a piece of propaganda I received from the premiers office last week.

Doug Ford,
With all due respect, your claim that your government’s environment plan is designed “to preserve nature and ensure Ontario’s beauty can be enjoyed for generations to come” is a lie. Indeed, you seem to have no interest in taking action against climate change if it inconveniences you and your developer cronies. Here is the evidence:
1. Immediately on taking office you, Mr. Ford, cancelled Ontario’s Cap and Trade program which was designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. When the federal government, in response, implemented a Carbon Tax, your government fought it all the way to the Supreme Court (and lost thankfully). Then, in a fit of pique you forced gas stations to apply ridiculous stickers protesting the tax (which, as you know, most Ontarians support). That taxpayer funded boondoggle, too, was ruled unconstitutional.
2. Your government passed legislation (Schedule 6) allowing the expanded use of MZOs to override the province’s Conservation Authorities (CA) to make way for development projects that threaten our natural environment. Half the board of the provincially mandated Greenbelt Council resigned in protest, including its chair, David Crombie. He described your actions as “high-level bombing.” CAs protect our precious water resources; their oversight helps to mitigate soil erosion and the resulting flooding (Think of the tragedy of Hurricane Hazel); they protect the health of fish and wildlife. You would rather protect golf courses than wetlands.
3. You point out in your email response that greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario have gone down by 21 per cent since 2005. But you know full well that the only reason for the decline is that the previous Liberal Government cancelled the province’s highly polluting gas plants. How dare you take credit for beneficial environment policies enacted by your predecessors!
4. Your resurrection of the ludicrously ill-conceived Highway 413 (and the Bradford Bypass) will cut through wetlands, Indigenous sacred grounds, and some of the most fertile farmland in the province. We, the people of Ontario are not stupid. It is clear this project is meant to line the pockets of your developer cronies. At a time when the people of Ontario desperately need improved public transit you are intent on building highways, increasing urban sprawl and gridlock, and decimating the Green Belt.
You sir, are a grifter and a crook and your name will go down in the annals of Ontario history along with Mike (Walkerton) Harris as a greedy, self-serving bully.”
I know this message is long and involved. I doesn’t have to be. Most days I send one-sentence emails about, variously, $10-a-day childcare, Bill 184, Hwy 413, rapid antigen COVID-19 tests, paid sick days, ministerial zoning orders and so on. I copy the emails to Brian Saunderson who will likely be the next MPP for Simcoe-Grey, as well as whoever the minister involved is in whatever issue I’m writing about. Speak up. It only takes a few minutes. This is how democracy works in an era of creeping authoritarianism.
Cecily Ross,
Creemore.

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