QUEEN’S PARK – Official Opposition NDP critic for Climate Action Peter Tabuns (Toronto—Danforth) is sounding the alarm on the monetary cost of the Conservatives’ failure to address the climate crisis following the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario’s latest report on the budgetary impacts of changing climate hazards on public infrastructure.
“The cost of doing nothing is billions of dollars higher than the cost of proactively investing in our public infrastructure for climate adaptation,” Tabuns said. “Instead of making the necessary investments, the corrupt Conservatives are making things worse. With their climate denialism, they are allowing the destruction of wetlands and other natural heritage that help lessen the impacts of climate change on people and property.
“They’re focused on giving preferential treatment to their friends, while putting our province at greater risks from floods, fires, droughts, water contamination and other climate-related threats. Today’s report makes it clear – Ford’s inadequate and failing 'climate plans' will lead to extreme circumstances that our province is not equipped to face.”
Jennifer French (Oshawa), the Official Opposition critic for Infrastructure, called on the Conservative government to begin proactively investing to adapt Ontario’s public infrastructure to withstand climate impacts.
“While the province is failing to invest in adapting our public infrastructure for climate change, municipalities are being forced to plan for wasteful and costly sprawl-oriented development,” she said. “This makes people more dependent on fossil fuels and increases the costs of infrastructure for taxpayers. Failing to invest in the state-of-good repair of municipal and provincial infrastructure assets will make us more vulnerable to climate-related impacts and cost us so much more.”