• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
BREAKING: UN Nature Summit, the ‘Paris Conference for Biodiversity’, Moves to Montreal in December June 19, 2022
‘LET’S SUE BIG OIL’: Legal Team Launches Class Action Campaign for B.C. Municipalities June 17, 2022
‘It Could Have Been Any of Us’, Colleague Says, After Brazil Confirms Murders of Bruno Pereira, Dom Phillips June 17, 2022
Infrastructure Gap a ‘Life and Death’ Matter as Northern Canada Warms June 17, 2022
Ban Fossil Fuel Ads Like Tobacco Promos, Doctors Urge Ottawa June 10, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Climate & Society Energy / Carbon Pricing & Economics

Stop Treating Car Owners as ‘Abused Minority’, Globe and Mail Urges Ontario Party Leaders

May 27, 2018
Reading time: 2 minutes

Danielle Scott/flickr

Danielle Scott/flickr

 

With a provincial election now less than two weeks away, it’s time for Ontario politicians of all political stripes to stop pandering to car owners and expect them to cover more of the cost of their preferred form of mobility, the Globe and Mail argues in a recent editorial.

“For a nation whose drivers are being gouged at the pump—as parties of the left, right, and centre assure us they are—Canadians sure love burning fuel,” the Globe states. “Four of the five bestselling automobiles in Canada last year were gas-guzzling pickups. Sales of luxury SUVs surged in 2017, too, while sales of fuel-efficient subcompact cars plummeted.”

Car ownership has its costs in traffic congestion, air pollution, climate change, and urban sprawl, and “most drivers of Silverados and Land Rovers are not going off-road or hauling lumber,” the paper notes. Yet “these Canadians are willing to pay more when they gas up in order to feel like the king of the road en route to their kids’ soccer practices.”

Yet the Globe contends that party leaders Doug Ford, Andrea Horwath, and to a lesser extent Kathleen Wynne “have treated the province’s drivers as a kind of abused minority”, with the Conservatives offering to cut fuel taxes by more than 5¢ per litre and New Democrats coming out “four-square against road tolls”. Prior to the campaign, Wynne’s governing Liberal Party “did more than its share, most damagingly when it kiboshed Toronto Mayor John Tory’s attempt to toll some of the city’s highways.”

Responsible political leaders “should be making drivers pay more of those costs, not fewer of them,” the Globe concludes, particularly given the mix of vehicles Canadians are choosing to buy. “Drivers shouldn’t be shamed for using a means of transportation that public policy has encouraged for generations, but nor should they be coddled,” the editorial states. “Auto ownership has costs,” and right now, motorists aren’t fully paying them.



in Energy / Carbon Pricing & Economics

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

willenhallwench / Pixabay
Clean Electricity Grid

PG&E Risks Greenwashing with Definition of ‘Scope 4’ Emissions

June 24, 2022
48
TripodStories- AB/wikimedia commons
Ending Emissions

BREAKING: Energy Transition ‘Not Happening’ as Fossil Subsidies Fuel Historic Missed Opportunity

June 15, 2022
750
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/Wikimedia Commons
Oil & Gas

Three Oil Companies Exit Arctic Wildlife Refuge

June 14, 2022
477

Comments 1

  1. René Ebacher says:
    4 years ago

    Transportation is responsible for the largest and fastest growing share of Ontario’s greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions have grown by 28% since 1990, and totalled 58 million tonnes (Mt) carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2 eq) in 2014 (34% of Ontario’s total GHG emissions).
    Over 80% of these emissions come from on-road passenger (33.1 Mt) and freight vehicles (15.2 Mt) such as cars and trucks; the rest comes from off-road vehicles such as construction and logging vehicles (5.4 Mt), domestic aviation (2.2 Mt) and navigation (1.3 Mt), and rail (1.4 Mt).
    Although federal standards are improving the fuel efficiency of passenger vehicles, their benefit has been more than offset by an increase in both the number of vehicles and the total distance travelled. As well, many consumers prefer less fuel-efficient vehicles such as SUV’s, pickups and medium to heavy-duty vans (65% of new vehicles sold in Canada in 2014) which release, on average, 45% more greenhouse gases per kilometre than cars.
    (source: Environmental Commissioner of Ontario: “Facing Climate Change: Greenhouse Gas Progress Report 2016”)
    As the 1963 oil crisis triggered the development of smaller more efficient cars due to the increase of gasoline prices at the pump, the only way to make people think before they buy gas-guzzling vehicles is to hike the price of gasoline, not the other way around. Governments can use that extra money to develop public transit and other more environmentally ways to travel.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

The federal government's Cliff Street Power Plant is at the centre of Ottawa's plans to reduce natural gas demand. Photo: PWGSC

EXCLUSIVE: Ontario Regulator Refuses New Pipeline, Tells Enbridge to Plan for Lower Gas Demand

May 30, 2022
5.1k
Ben_Kerckx/Pixabay

Plastics Cited as ‘Fossil Industry’s Plan B’ as Guilbeault Announces Partial Ban

June 24, 2022
197
zephylwer0/pixabay

North American Steel, Aluminium Giants Lumber Toward Green Transition

June 24, 2022
170
Jason Woodhead/Flickr

Trans Mountain Pipeline On Track to Lose $600 Million, Parliamentary Budget Officer Finds

June 24, 2022
314
Bruce Reeve/Flickr

Opinion: Ontario’s New ‘Carbon Tax’ Looks Like the One Doug Ford Fought

June 7, 2022
1.6k
Michael and Diane Weidner/Unsplash

Scientists, Politicians Debate Ethics of ‘Climate Tinkering’

June 7, 2022
74

Recent Posts

Erik Whalen/wikimedia commons

Yellowstone Park Reopens, But Flood Recovery Could Take Years, Cost Billions

June 24, 2022
73
TAFE SA TONSLEY/Flickr

Clean Energy Investment to Exceed $1.4T This Year, Still Falls Short of Climate Goals: IEA

June 24, 2022
95
Nemaska Lithium/Facebook

Critical Minerals, Hydrogen Lead Ottawa’s Low-Carbon Industry Strategy

June 24, 2022
79
Cjp24/Wikimedia Commons

UK Green Shift Won’t Repeat Job Destruction of Deindustrialization, Report Finds

June 24, 2022
37
/PxFul

Canadian Farmers Offer Ottawa a Roadmap to Cut Agriculture Emissions

June 24, 2022
95
Pavlofox/Pixabay

Millions Face Famine as Climate Disasters, Ukraine War Slash Food Supplies

June 24, 2022
51
Next Post
Scully and Mulder/Facebook

Validating Conspiracy Beliefs Might Help Deniers Accept Climate Science

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}