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Statement from Green Party candidate David Robinson: If you care about climate change, your vote must be Green

Election news release issued May 17, 2018
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This news release was issued May 31, 2018, by David Robinson, the Ontario Green Party candidate in Sudbury

(SUDBURY) – The only vote for real action on global warming in this provincial election is a vote cast for the Green Party of Ontario, according to Sudbury Green candidate Dr. David Robinson.

“The Green Party will lower greenhouse gas emissions by making people happy to shift from carbon fuels,” says Robinson, an economist and an expert on carbon pricing.  “We have to have a carbon fee that will raise the price on carbon pollution high enough so that people want low carbon cars and heat-ing systems. That sounds like it will hurt - but not the way we do it. We hand back the money we collect from the carbon fee. You could even buy the same amount of gas that you bought before.”

Asked how giving the money back will change consumer behaviour, the economist said, “If the price of gas goes up enough you switch to an electric car.  Electric cars are better in most ways already. They will be cheaper than gasoline-powered cars soon.  Voting Green speeds up the switch.”

“The Liberal-NDP cap-and-trade plan is doomed to fail,” says Robinson. “There is simply no way that consumers will accept an extra 50 cents a litre at the pump unless they get the money back the same week. Fifty cents a litre is the minimum level economists think will change peoples’ spending patterns.”

“Our dividend system solves the problem,” says Robinson.  “The higher the price of carbon rises, the more money we’ll send back. It is revenue neutral for the people, not the government.”
According to Robinson, every Ontarian will get a cheque every month for their share of carbon fees collected. 

“There is a bit of Robin Hood in this approach,” says Robinson. “Everyone gets an equal share of the carbon revenue because everyone has an equal share of the air and the climate. That means the rich will generally put more in than the poor.”

“As an economist, I know that carbon fee and dividend will work,” says Robinson.  “The climate crisis is bad news. The good news is that we already have everything we need to deal with the crisis, with one big exception.”

According to Robinson, “The bottleneck is 100% political.  It’s Liberal, Conservative and New Democratic politicians who don’t understand the technology or the economics, but who firmly believe that the public isn’t ready for action.”

“If you are under 30, if you have children or grandchildren, you have to think about the big picture,” says Robinson. “The only way to send the message that you want action on global warming in this election is to vote Green.  That’s why I’m running for the Green Party.”

“Ontario currently shovels $55 billion across our provincial border every year for fossil fuels that we don’t need,” says Robinson.  “We should have been aggressively switching to clean technologies more than a decade ago. The Liberals decided that the political cost of real action was just too steep so they pretended to be doing something. They let the 150 biggest polluters off scot free. They collect $17 per tonne for carbon emissions from the small fries, then they spend it on the projects they like. It’s done nothing at all to shift consumer behaviour.”  

“They don’t like our carbon dividend strategy because they want to keep the money for their pet pro-jects,” Robinson charges.

The Green Party of Ontario has committed to ending all fossil fuel subsidies by 2022 and to aggressively lowering carbon emissions through a carbon fee and dividend system.
Robinson points out that Sudbury should be developing geothermal energy. 

“It will be a huge market,” says Robinson. “We have companies making drills, dealing with mine heat, capturing heat from sewer systems. For us the shift from natural gas to heat exchangers is huge opportunity.” 


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