December 7th, 2021

FAO report shows Ford pushing climate costs to next generation: Fife

QUEEN’S PARK – NDP Finance critic Catherine Fife released the following statement in response to a new Financial Accountability Office (FAO) report on the financial impacts of climate change on public infrastructure:

“Today’s FAO report shows that the costs of doing nothing are much higher than the cost of climate action. By not addressing and investing in climate change solutions, our homes and businesses face repeated flooding, road replacements and rebuilding our waste water systems in response to emerging extreme weather events. Our children and grandchildren will be saddled with not only these costs, but with the much greater cost of an unlivable world, unless we act today to mitigate climate change.

Doug Ford has not only failed to prepare for climate change, he’s gleefully taken Ontario backwards. He gutted conservation authorities, ripped out electric vehicle charging stations and wasted millions on a failed court challenge in an attempt to stop federal climate change action. Ford’s failure to take climate change seriously means Ontario won’t even achieve one-fifth of its own weakened climate targets.

The disturbing images of washed out highways in British Columbia show the risks of climate change on public infrastructure. Ontario’s New Democrats have released Ontario’s most ambitions, concrete and achievable plan to fight climate change — the Climate. Jobs. Justice plan, a Green New Democratic Deal. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to do this now.”