General Politics Discussion

[danbrotherston]

I'll add it to my depressing list.

Someones upset. 

I understand the local issues.  Even the provincial and federal issues.

Thing is, at the end of the day, a money talks issue. For any living paycheque to paycheque, or even trying to save a little, this cap&trade and green energy was a bad idea. "Greenifying" the province wasn't going to solve the issues at hand. It primarily helped the wealthy, the ones that could afford to spend $20,000 putting new windows in their house, when it really wasn't needed, and getting $5,000 in return.  Meanwhile, someone who needed new windows still couldn't afford it, especially NOW that their paying more for hydro, more for gas, more for water, more for gas for their car, and more for everything else. It was good for the wealthy that OWNED their homes and could afford the heat pump and get a large rebate. For the ones with a good job, good income, and were willing to take a very small risk and put solar panels on their roofs with a very good return. Screw the renters, the ones living in small homes, townhomes, and ones with no south facing roofs, they have to pay for it anyway with their hydro bill. The eco-return refund for electric cars, again, only helping ones with more cash. The ones, at least the ones I personally know, drive around in their 'green' cars to work, looking all proud, the ones with the Tesla and their $14,000 rebate, meanwhile keeping their SUV/Land Rover/Hummer or whatever else they have, for their weekend vehicle. Really, at the end of the day, you have some 6 or 7 figure income earner, driving his Tesla, not paying any road taxes, and has solar panels on his mansion, so basically not paying for electricity. No saving the environment there, when one comes to think of the carbon footprint at building these e-cars with their huge batteries. And really, anything we do that is positive is more symbolic right now, as long as Canada continues to have harsh winters (after all, we need to heat our homes), continues to be huge geographically (green energy options not sensible with a country this size), and sits next door to a country like the USA. The only thing that really happened with these green initiatives was it helped push businesses out of Ontario. In another thread, we were discussing London Hydro's idea of perhaps pursuing smaller utilities. Looking at Kitchener-Wilmot Hydro, the amount of "large" customers they have can be counted with your pinky fingers. That's sad. You need an economy as long as we're an economy based world, as we haven't yet reached "Star Trek" style economy (where money doesn't exist). 

....

You're right, I am hella upset. But frankly, I didn't want to make this into a debate.  I'll respond to ONE of your points, because your post was entirely too long to waste my time replying to all of it.

The facts are clear here, climate change is happening, and it will be expensive and destructive to our future.

We can all discuss the pros and cons of different policy, I certainly agree with aspects of what you say, and I'd be happy to see a progressive conservative government implementing their policies to help fix things.

But the fact is, Doug does not have a replacement policy.  He was asked straight up in a debate.  He has nothing.  He is here to pander and to sell off our future for immediate gains.  A big problem is the Liberal policy was largely a conservative fiscal policy, so it's hard to come up with something else, when the Liberals already took the policy that conservatives would support.

Regardless of whether you believe Wynne is mean spirited or not (she isn't) and whether Doug is, (frankly, I wonder), is irrelevant.  Doug is getting rid of this to appease short sighted people, and his choices are self serving and ultimate self defeating.

So yeah....I'm hella upset. I'm not terribly politically biased, I support good policy wherever it comes from. And frankly, your straw man argument doesn't help me be less upset.