Media Release - SENIORS’ GROUP FORCING ANOTHER FORD CLIMBDOWN

I'm involved with a Senior's Climate group called SCAN!  This morning SCAN! put out this media release.  

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For immediate release, November 6, 2023

The Ford government is finally going to release climate reports it has kept hidden from public view. 

Thanks to the efforts of members of SCAN!(https://seniorsforclimateactionnow.org/), the Ford government is finally preparing to release four reports on how it should be protecting Ontarians from climate breakdown. One has been hidden for two years. The others were kept hidden for the better part of a year.

Late Friday November 3, SCAN! adaptation expert member Jennifer Penney was notified that the government will soon be releasing them in response to several Freedom of Information requests she has made.

It took the retirees more than a year of direct requests to the Ministry of the Environment, Freedom of Information filings by multiple individuals, media interviews, and an open letter signed by 1,400 Ontarians to get the government to show us what it should be doing about adaptation to climate breakdown.

“These reports provide expert advice for Ontarians, for our communities, for our governments, to guide efforts to protect us from the impacts of severe climate events” said Dr. Penney.

“Scientists have long called on governments to implement comprehensive adaptation programs. It is unconscionable that the government has sat on this guidance for so long. It shouldn’t take a bunch of retirees making a fuss to get it to move.”

One of the reports is from the Advisory Panel on Climate Change, appointed by the government in 2019. It was led by climate change adaptation expert Paul Kovac and was submitted in November 2021. But it has not been seen since.

 The Technical Report of Provincial Climate Change Impact Assessment (PCCIA), dated January 2023, was quietly released in late August, seven months after it was submitted. It only hinted at what needs to be done to protect Ontario from climate breakdown.

Among these hints, the PCCIA Technical Report emphasizes the need to “protect and strengthen the Conservation Authorities Act and Environmental Assessment Act”.  This advice runs counter to Premier Ford’s mandate letter to the Environment Minister, which required a review of environmental legislation that impacts businesses to ensure it didn’t place “undue burdens” on the private sector.

“As the PCCIA Technical Report insists, we need ‘accelerated action’,” said Penney. “I sincerely hope this government soon shares what that action will be.” 

Seniors for Climate Action Now! Is a rapidly growing voluntary organization mobilizing seniors to call for emergency climate action at all levels of government.

Further information: Jennifer Penney, jp1146@gmail.com, 647-458--0404

Truth Has Vanished

Like the passenger pigeon it seems that truth has vanished forever from our political discourse.
 
Not that long ago when Trump was President of the United States and still tweeting he posted a tweet where, in one sentence, he made 4 false claims.  (A tweet is about  two short sentences.)
 
This came as no surprise to those paying attention to the state of today’s politics.

The People's Premier?

In Ontario the Premier, of his self-styled Government for The People makes promises like:
                              

                No one will lose their job, absolutely no one.
                      
                I’ll lower hydro rates by 12 per cent.
                             
                We won’t touch the Greenbelt. of Ontario 
 
It is not enough that the promises are unfulfilled but that such statements are repeated so often that they become assumed authentic.

So what about truth?

Eric Blair, Spanish Civil War Veteran

George Orwell  had something to say on the matter. The English writer argued that history had, in fact, stopped in Spain in 1936. Orwell had seen that reporting in Spain’s newspapers “did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie.”

 

Orwell, then a virtually unheard of English writer known as Eric Blair, worried that the “concept of objective truth (was) fading out of the world and lies would pass into history.”

 Seniors for Climate Action Now (SCAN!)

For the past couple of years I’ve been involved with a group called Seniors for Climate Action Now (SCAN!) https://seniorsforclimateactionnow.org/
 
SCAN volunteers spent a good deal of time and energy prior to the June 2nd provincial election documenting Ford’s crimes against Climate.  New crimes against the environment like the More Homes Built Faster Act are being documented but it is hard to keep up with this repeat offender.   These crimes all seem stem from the kind of thinking that denies objective truth.  A case in point is the rationale recently put forward to open up lands in the Greenbelt  in order to build so-called affordable housing. 
 
Much has been written and said by experts, advocates and citizens regarding Bill 23 the More Homes Built Faster Act (2022).  Here is SCAN!’s view https://seniorsforclimateactionnow.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SCAN-Climate-Crime-34-2023-01.pdf
 

The Ford government is well aware of the opposition to their measures but has calculated that the public will just accept them because they are passed.  

We can`t give up the fight.  Here are some resources and links you can check out.
          
Resources and Events
 
*You can find Environmental Defence at https://environmentaldefence.ca/
 
*Changes to maps and Official Plans can be found at https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-6216#decision-details and https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-6217
 
*Alliance for a Livable Ontario is at https://www.liveableontario.ca/
 
*The Land Between, a grassroots non-governmental organization, has materials on the  consequences of the legislation and what you can do at https://www.thelandbetween.ca/bill23-stealingourlegacy/#Solidarity

*The webinar Bill 23 and the Greenbelt – What`s Next? runs about an hour and can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_j49m11Q7w

*Stop Sprawl Halton’s website is at https://www.stopsprawlhalton.org/