A dirty-air act

Since we clearly needed one more example of the insanity of the Cons' made-in-Canada inaction on climate change, the Globe and Mail reports that the Cons are pulling funding which was to have assisted in Ontario's effort to phase out coal-fired power plants:

The federal government has pulled the plug on hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding that was supposed to help Ontario phase out its high-polluting, coal-fired power plants while it concentrates on its "made-in-Canada" approach to fighting emissions that cause climate change.

Ontario officials say that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty wrote on Wednesday to Dwight Duncan, his provincial counterpart, informing him that at least $538-million the previous Liberal government pledged to help defray the costs of the province's actions to fight global warming were off the table...

Ontario officials say the action breaks a funding commitment for an important national environmental goal. The coal phase-out is the largest effort in Canada to reduce greenhouse gases, and when it is complete in 2009, would reduce emissions by up to 30 million tonnes, or the same amount as taking seven million cars off the road, according to Ontario estimates.

In addition to the "need to reevaluate" excuse, the article notes that the funding was to have been provided under the Libs' "partnership agreement" giveaway to Ontario, some parts of which were retracted by the Cons as being national issues rather than bilateral ones. But there's no apparent reason for the Cons to maintain funding under that agreement only for areas which are supposedly Ontario-specific, while undermining national (and global) policy goals by withdrawing funding. And the article points out that to the extent the issue is a national one, there may be a spillover effect in preventing Manitoba and Quebec from being able to plan on an Ontario market for hydroelectric power - which surely won't go over well in those provinces either.

As for the environment, it's once again clear that the Cons will gladly throw important policies out the window in order to avoid the risk that the Libs might look good in the long run. And to the extent that Ontario is delayed in (or prevented from) taking coal-fired plants offline, the damage may be felt by Ontario and the rest of the world for a long time to come.