Making life better for Greenhouse operators, owners and workers

KINGSVILLE, ON – Patrick Brown, Ontario PC Leader slammed the Kathleen Wynne Liberals for making life harder for the Greenhouse industry under their Cap-and-Trade scheme. Brown committed to scrap Wynne’s Cap-and-Trade Scheme and replace it with a carbon price that would give relief to the Greenhouse industry as British Columbia and Alberta have done.

“The next election will be about change for the better versus the status quo,” Brown said. “We will scrap Wynne’s Cap-and-Trade Scheme and give the greenhouse industry relief. Life will be better under our government for the greenhouse industry.”

The greenhouse industry uses natural gas to heat its greenhouses to create an artificial climate to grow plants. In using natural gas they create carbon dioxide that they use as a food source through photosynthesis for their vegetables and flowers, which then expel oxygen instead. Since greenhouses use the carbon dioxide they produce, there is a business case to exempt them from carbon pricing. In addition, our greenhouse industry competes against jurisdictions without carbon taxes and therefore they should not pay carbon taxes on products they export.

Alberta and BC greenhouse industries get rebates that cover 80 percent of the cost of those provinces’ carbon taxes. This recognizes, first, that greenhouses consume carbon dioxide and second, that this is an export industry that competes with jurisdictions without carbon taxes.

Ontario is a greenhouse powerhouse, with nearly 2,900 acres of greenhouses, an increase of over 800 acres over a few years ago. Wynne’s Cap-and-Trade Scheme will result in many of these greenhouses relocating to carbon tax-free jurisdictions across the border.

“Life is harder under Wynne,” Brown concluded. “I want an Ontario where people will want to create good long-term jobs and those who do will want to stay here. We will rebuild the economy with a balanced plan to provide the right conditions for job growth.”