Statement from the Ontario PC Environment Critic on California’s Cap-and-Trade Auction

The following is a statement from Ontario PC Environment and Cap-and-Trade Critic Lisa Thompson on the results of the California cap-and-trade auction:

“The Ontario PC Party is again calling on the Liberals to abandon their cap-and-trade scheme after California sold only 1.49 per cent of its carbon credits at last weeks’ auction. 

The Liberal government is setting Ontario up for failure by entering the province into California’s oversupplied carbon market. This past week, the California government sold only $8.4 million worth of carbon allowances, in an auction that was intended to raise $563.5 million. This is the second time in a row that California’s auction has flopped, after the government sold just two per cent of its available carbon allowances in May. 

This money was supposed to fund green programs in California, such as a high speed rail project. Instead, California will have to find another source of funding to make up for the 98.5 per cent shortfall from the August auction. What will happen to Ontario taxpayers if future auctions fail to raise the $1.9 billion that the Liberals have already spent on their climate change action plan – money that the Wynne government claims will be raised through cap-and-trade revenues.

Even more troubling is that the people of Ontario don’t even support Kathleen Wynne’s cap-and-trade scheme to begin with. A Forum poll published last week showed that a staggering 56 per cent of Ontarians disapprove of the plan. 

The Liberal cap-and-trade scheme simply will not work and fail Ontarians. The Liberals will be unable to raise money for their slush fund and all of their spending promises, and it is the people of Ontario who will have to bear the brunt of their bad policies. When will the Liberals listen to the market, and most importantly the people of Ontario, and scrap their ill-fated cap-and-trade scheme for good?”