Sudbury riding Green Party candidate David Robinson wants to debate NDP candidate Jamie West on which of their party’s has the best climate policy.
The candidate issued the challenge this week.
“Jamie supports a Cap-and-Trade system. I have explained that it is the wrong system for Ontario. He claims it is just a matter of opinion,” Robinson said in a news release. “Let’s see if he can back up his opinion.”
An economist, Robinson said he has lectured on the principles of climate economics when he was a Laurentian University professor and says he helped shape the Green’s climate policy.
“We have to get this right or nothing else will matter,” Robinson said. “Global warming is the big issue in this election. Global warming caused the deadly storms that killed nine (since updated to 10) Canadians on the weekend.”
Pointing to “murderous” 50-degree temperatures in India and Pakistan that have killed “at least 90 people”, and the possibility a climate-change-driven drought in the Horn of Africa this year could see 20 million people go hungry, Robinson said there is no time to waste and the NDP plan doesn’t go far enough.
“Jamie has been nearly silent on this issue. I don’t believe he understands it. I don’t believe he understands climate policy. He has to face the voters on this issue,” Robinson said.
“As an economist, I say that the NDP plan is expensive to run, bureaucratic, open to backdoor deals, and just less effective than our plan. The NDP plans to keep 75 per cent of the money they collect to spend on their own priorities. The Greens plan to give the money back to people. A carbon price should be as revenue neutral as we can make it.”
The Ontario election is June 2, but the advance polls are open now.
