The Curse Of News Literacy

There are some days I almost wish I weren't a newspaper reader. That way I wouldn't be confronted  daily with the world's stupidity and perhaps not constantly haunted by a jaundiced view of humanity.

In my previous post I wrote at some length about the buffoonery that defines the Doug Ford government here in Ontario; while I briefly return to that subject now, I shall also take a look at my disappointment over Jagmeet Singh's recent pronouncements. Just bear with me, if you are so inclined.

First, a peek at our Pavlovian premier, Mr. Ford. The previous government, under Kathleen Wynne, mandated charging plugs for all new house and condo builds in 2018. Mr. Ford, in 2019, stripped that provision out of the building code. Despite his heavily investing in EV battery plants for Ontario, he will not reverse that decision.

... after lobbying from developers who said the plugs added $500 to the cost of a new house, Ford stripped them from the code. He also ended rebates of up to $14,000 for buyers of EVs and scrapped chargers from GO Transit stations and other public locations.

Why, when EV investment is so important to the Ontario economy, would he continue to hang tough?

Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Paul Calandra, who tabled legislation modernizing the building code on Wednesday, warned that keeping new home costs low is more important than mandating EV chargers.

“Look, I think homeowners can make that decision on their own. If you’re wanting to buy a EV, we encourage you to do it — that’s why we’re making massive investments in that,” Calandra told reporters at Queen’s Park.

“But if that’s something that you want to do, then the homeowner themselves can undertake that. We want to keep costs of building new homes down,” he said.

The price of installing an EV charger in an existing home can be between $1,000 and $3,000 — much more than putting one in during construction.

 Green Leader Mike Schreiner said the Tories “are ideologically opposed to building the infrastructure we need for electric vehicles” and that has economic consequences.

“Is Ford Motor Company delaying the building of their plant and retooling their plant in Oakville because they know we don’t have the infrastructure in Ontario to facilitate the adoption of electric vehicles?” said Schreiner.

I leave you to draw your own conclusions as to the 'soundness' of the government's 'thinking'. 

Things are not much better on the federal scene. I must confess to my surprise and disappointment with NDP leader Jagment Singh, who now seems to be waffling on the carbon levy and thereby succumbing to the siren call of populism.

The federal New Democrats no longer believe a consumer carbon price is necessary to fight climate change, Jagmeet Singh suggested Thursday.

The new position, which appears to break with the NDP’s previous support for the policy, was outlined in a speech Singh delivered at the Broadbent Institute’s annual policy conference in Ottawa on Thursday. In it, he distanced his party from the federal Liberals’ flagship climate policy, which has drawn criticism from across the country as the levy and its accompanying rebates increased this April.

Singh condemned the approaches of both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to the climate crisis, and said tackling it “can’t be done by letting working families bear the cost of climate change while big polluters make bigger and bigger profits.”

Sadly, this move lends legitimacy to the prattle of PP and the provincial premiers, who seem to speak as one in denouncing the levy as a burden on all of us, despite the fact that most come out ahead with the feds' quarterly rebate checks. 

I will give Singh credit for one assertion, however.

Referring to a March report that concluded industrial carbon pricing systems were far more effective than the consumer levy on fuel, Singh told reporters that the New Democrats “want more attention on the policies that are the biggest drivers of lowering emissions,” such as the industrial price on pollution and methane regulations. 

Industrial carbon pricing systems would be a reference to such protocols as cap and trade. Yes, the very same system that Doug Ford dismantled when he came to power, a move that led to Trudeau imposing the carbon levy on all of us. Interestingly, even as Mr. Ford and others rail against the levy, no one seems to have any interest in bringing back cap and trade. Why not? You would have to ask Mr. Ford and his friends in high places for the answer.

I also don't have a direct answer as to why the electorate cannot make the journey from A to B and connect the dots that would show the arrant hypocrisy of people like Ford when they indulge in the political theatre of fed-bashing.

Hence my jaundiced view of humanity.