This article was written by Peer Zumbansen and Daniel Tsai, and was published in the Toronto Star on August 26, 2023.

As governments fiddle while the Earth burns, environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors call on corporations to immediately address climate change and to establish sustainability and ethical business practices. However, for corporations, these are often voluntary commitments and not legal requirements.

The Canadian federal and provincial governments have sorely lacked the leadership and the ideas to implement ESG in a way that would have a transformative impact on climate change and society. Despite pledging $200 billion to fight climate change, Canada has failed to spend anywhere near that, as the Star has reported.

Consequently, ESG faces the stubborn resistance of corporations as they seek to maximize profits while virtue signalling to the public with greenwashing measures.

At McGill University’s CIBC Office of Sustainable Finance, we propose a series of transformative reforms for governments and corporations to incentivize ESG and engage in climate change initiatives. The reforms will bring about increased Canadian competitiveness, innovation, economic prosperity and a secure future.

First, the Canadian Income Tax Act should include tax credits and deductions to support ESG and purpose-driven corporations (for example, those developing climate change technologies). Our existing tax system currently provides credits for mining and oil and gas sectors, plus favourable tax treatment for investors in such sectors by accessing special flow-through shares to deduct corporate losses against their personal income. Similarly, this could be applied to purposedriven investments.

Canada should also develop a special tax status targeted at organizations that meet ESG-related standards throughout their business practices, but that would provide tax incentives and bend the development curve to technologies and business models that address climate change.

This special status should introduce a sliding-scale corporate tax break aimed at small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as well as tax

incentives to support corporations implementing ESG-conscious business practices.

Research suggests such tax and climate incentives will help spur economic growth, investment and development in beneficial industries and technologies, the way they have with electric vehicle development among car manufacturers.

In addition to the Clean Technology Investment Tax Credit in 2023’s federal budget, the Canadian government can further leverage taxation schemes to encourage businesses to invest in a purpose-based economy. The Brookings Institution argues that tax incentives “can power more equitable, inclusive growth.” Targeted corporate tax breaks can motivate corporations to better integrate sustainable practices within their business models.

Second, corporations should be legally required to include a social-purpose statement in their bylaws and implement mechanisms to increase stakeholder transparency and engagement by creating and publishing industry-specific universal ESG metrics. Amending the tax system to develop a special status to reward organizations that meet an ESG-related standard throughout their business practices would create targeted investment vehicles that favour and proliferate socially responsible investment.

Third, the Canadian federal government and its banking regulator can set rules requiring banks to implement sustainability into their underwriting policies. For example, assigning a higher-interest cost for loans that result in poor ESG outcomes

will transform industries to invest in good ESG.

Government can help guide the Canadian financial sector to become a sustainable system. This means protecting large institutional investors making bold (but prudent) decisions to green their portfolios, while providing incentives to guide investment in green technologies and products.

Fourth, the creation of universal government standards (similar to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) for ESG and a public sustainability index for lending and investment would act as a guide for banks and public corporations and encourage accountability and transparency and end greenwashing.

Climate change is everything. It is inextricably linked to modern economic, financial and governance systems, and shatters the pretence that unlimited economic growth is always possible.

With unprecedented wildfires in Canada, and the Earth suffering its hottest July in 120,000 years, governments and corporations have the power and means to stop climate change.

New approaches to government regulation and ESG for corporations must be adopted now and go beyond empty promises. PEER ZUMBANSEN IS PROFESSOR OF BUSINESS LAW AND THE CHAIR OF THE CIBC OFFICE OF SUSTAINABLE FINANCE AT MCGILL UNIVERSITY. DANIEL TSAI IS SENIOR FELLOW IN THE CIBC OFFICE OF SUSTAINABLE FINANCE, LECTURER AT U OF T AND TMU, AND FORMER SENIOR POLICY ADVISER IN THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT.

This article was written by Heather Mallick and was published in the Toronto Star on July 31, 2023.

Last week I was in a tiny Toronto restaurant that was struggling terribly with its air conditioning while placing small tables too close together because it was struggling terribly with its financial survival.

In the era of broken social norms, two massive bros were at a table inches away trying to impress their increasingly fed-up dates by getting drunk and competitively roaring at each other so loudly that eventually the other tables emptied and people left, looking grim.

I didn’t want to leave because I was childishly excited at being out at all — when you have long COVID, restaurant meals are rarely a thing — and enjoying the unfamiliar unpleasantness of other humans.

I was considering people out in public and Fran Lebowitz’s view of them. “I think people have forgotten what the word ‘public’ means,” she wrote. “‘Public’ means you’re going to be irritated. It’s a natural consequence of leaving one’s home.”

Although she was writing about smoking in public, so she lost that one.

Also I was eating Tacos Shrimp Diablo and thinking that as the oceans boil, it might be the last time I ever ordered seafood with a clear conscience. What I would normally do in a loud stifling restaurant is move to a table outside. But it was too horribly all-consumingly hot out there.

Indoors was baking, outdoors was burning and there lay the dilemma. Most of the world has no choice between the two. Nighttime heat is said to be the killer and climate change means that it no longer gets significantly cooler at night. This spinning planet’s got no time.

It is always going to be like this. The question is what we do about it and you know, we may do nothing. Like me. It was my birthday and I got to decide for all of us. I didn’t complain, just quietly watched and savoured the chaos, perking up when some new diners started getting seriously annoyed. We wished them good luck.

Human beings are peculiar creatures. We are passive. The biggest problem we face at this moment in July, which may be the hottest month in human history, is that we know the heat will vanish. Fall will arrive, likely hotter and later, but inevitably. And we will forget.

Christmas is less than five months away. We may serve smoked salmon.

We forget about heat for the same reason that we feel instant pleasure when we enter an air-conditioned building after shuffling along a Toronto sidewalk with damp skin and a bad attitude. Air conditioning is a painkiller.

The agony melts away and so does the urgency.

We will also forget about overheating oceans. This month, water off Newfoundland’s coast was 5 C to 10 C warmer than normal, the kind of hot-tub statistic that had made me think that shrimp could vanish, in-person or as a concept.

On the other hand, hotter oceans mean worse storms coming up, which will trouble us again but, again, fail to remind us to prepare for the summer of 2024, which might be a bit awful or mightily horrendous.

The clever human brain got us to this point but it forgets too easily, especially when it’s too hot to think clearly.

When leaves begin to fall in October or eerily earlier than that, I will not be advising you to buy a family heat pump for Christmas.

You won’t be interested. Sadly, neither will I.

I will be writing about flooding, high winds, blackouts and possibly more tree limbs falling in Trinity Bellwoods Park in a city that can’t afford park maintenance.

We live in a Doug Ford world, unable or unwilling to envision dark possibilities. We’ll wait and watch it all happen to us. We’ll be passive. I do not understand.

This article was written by Wendy Stueck and was published in the Globe & Mail on August 19, 2023.

Wildfires can result in anxiety even for people who are hundreds of kilometres away, as smoke alters the air we breathe and the sunsets we see at night. The Globe spoke to Dr. Steven Taylor, a clinical psychologist and professor of psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, about how to manage stress and anxiety related to wildfires and climate change.

What do we know about how this summer’s wildfire smoke is affecting people’s mental health?

I think the sight of this wildfire smoke has become a a reminder of this sort of existential threat we face with climate change. So you’ve got this background level of concern. And then you get a discrete event, like wildfire plumes, and that amplifies people’s worries.

Let’s talk about what people can do about it. Any tips?

With regard to mental health, people should look for red flags. If you’re not sleeping, you’re worrying all the time, you’re irritable, you’re eating more, you’re shopping online more, you’re drinking more – those are red flags that it would be a good idea to look at your mental health, and try to do something about it.

So what kinds of things might people consider?

Having a sense of control is important. If people feel that they’re in an uncontrollable world, they tend to get very anxious. So one idea is to develop a personal action plan for doing your little bit about climate change. It may not seem like much, but collectively these things can have an impact. And stress management. Filter your dose of alarming media. We all need to stay informed, but you don’t need to be absorbed in it 24/7.

One thing many of us did during the COVID pandemic to help our mental health was to go outside. Wildfire smoke can make that difficult. How do we deal with that?

One of the predictors of protests and riots during the pandemic was this kind of ‘catch and release’ lockdown. People’s patience only goes so far. When you draw out those frustrations, it’s more likely that people’s mental health will deteriorate. They’ll get irritable, angry and will protest. Now we’re seeing something similar – we’ve just come out of this pandemic with its lockdowns. And now we’re being told you can’t go outside for a different reason. So, yes, this is going to be very challenging for people, and frustrating. But I guess what we can do is remind ourselves that this will be time-limited during the worst of the fires. And then we’ll be back getting outside.

What about talking to kids? What do you say when they ask you why the sky is orange or why they can’t go play outside?

It depends on the developmental age of the child. If you dump a whole lot of scary information on kids and there’s nothing they can do about it, they’re going to feel scared and helpless. I like the idea of short, accurate statements – “Well, the sky’s orange because of wildfires, and hopefully they will be done soon.” And it’s important to listen to your kids. Don’t assume that you know what they’re thinking, because you might be way off base unless you check in with them.

This letter to the editor was written by Ray Nakano and was published in the Globe & Mail on August 26, 2023.

You start by asking yourself why are the wildfires getting bigger, more intense and more numerous? It’s because of climate change. If you think further, you understand it’s because we are burning fossil fuels.

Your personal action plan should be directed to that goal: burning less fossil fuels. Drive less; switch to an electric vehicle; fly less; switch to an electric heat pump; eat less meat and dairy; tell your MP, MPP and city councillor that you want action on climate change; join or donate to an environmental group; attend protests; and vote.

Most importantly, talk about climate change. Unless we talk about it, we won’t do anything about it. If we do nothing, our climate crisis is only going to get worse. If we want a livable future for our children and grandchildren, we need to do everything we can. Doing something gives us hope. Doing nothing, there is none.

■ Ray Nakano Toronto

This opinion was written by Kevin Yin and was published in the Globe & Mail on August 25, 2023. Kevin is a Tobin Pre-Doctoral Fellow in Yale University’s economics department, he will be starting his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley.

Rich Kruger, the CEO of Suncor, has signalled a retreat from energy transition projects to refocus on its core oil sands business. These comments are the latest indicator that Canada’s incentives for companies to develop their green capacities are insufficient. Mr. Kruger’s remarks come on the heels of many large oil and gas companies recentring their strategies around nonrenewables. Shareholders applauded British Petroleum for walking back their environmental, social and governance (ESG) objectives this year. Shell capped its low-carbon expenditures and stated it will not accept sustainability alone in exchange for lower returns. Suncor itself sold off many of its wind and solar assets last year. One can bemoan their lack of altruism but the fact is these are private companies with responsibilities to their shareholders. Fossil fuels remain much more lucrative.

Wind and solar are becoming cheaper. However, it is a leap of economic logic to argue that falling costs necessarily beckon a speedy transition. Production can be low-cost without being profitable because there is still revenue to consider. How much you can sell for has as much to do with your competition as it does with your production costs. The hydrocarbon industries – i.e. oil, natural gas and coal – require a level of initial capital and infrastructure far beyond that of renewable energy, for exploration, drilling and processing. This keeps competitors out, and thus profits high, particularly in a climate of high fuel prices. The same is not true for renewable electricity markets. As a result, the internal rates of return on fossil fuel investments are 10 to 15 per cent, around double that of renewable investments.

The existing incentives are laudable but neither broad enough nor generous enough to address this gap. On many metrics, Canada still falls well behind the United States. Current Canadian tax credits reward investment in better tech but they do not reward production. Not only does such an omission leave our existing green producers at the mercy of U.S. competitors, which are buttressed by the Inflation Reduction Act’s production subsidies, it also fails to incentivize precisely the kinds of investments that hydrocarbon companies are willing to make.

As oil and gas executives have explained in the past, their expertise is better suited to purchasing existing farms and selling the electricity, not for developing cutting-edge windmills and solar panels. Ottawa feels that production credits would not make production more efficient over time. But it would make present methods more economical and both initiatives are important. We have large companies with deep pockets that are positioned to be producers rather than inventors, a crucial role our policies do not seem to value.

Nor has the Canadian business environment been a fertile ground for green energy development as of late. Alberta’s processing of applications to construct solar and wind farms, which once took months, has now been paused altogether. Such a volatile and confusing policy regime is a surefire way to spook investors in an industry already hobbled by unattractive profits. Other provinces lack the sensible power purchase agreement contracts (PPAs) that only Alberta offers, where companies can buy renewably sourced electricity directly from producers and offset their energy bills from other sources. It is another area where the United States excels and Canada is playing catch-up. Such a minor contractual innovation would unleash significant demand on the market for renewables and add a customer base for renewable-curious oil companies.

These policies would bring Canada closer to being on par with the United States but even par may not be enough. After all, British Petroleum and Shell, which have significant operations in the U.S., shifted away from renewables despite more generous offerings south of the border. More painful adjustments may be necessary.

Canada might consider slowly shifting the billions it provides in explicit and implicit oil and gas subsidies toward more generous clean credits. The government could double down on demand-side incentives that drive consumers toward solar and wind, which would be more politically marketable than taxes and economically equivalent. Another option is to allow for greater market concentration in renewables in exchange for enforceable transition commitments. Most of these would not be desirable under normal circumstances but the alternative is a Faustian bargain.

As long as green energy remains less profitable than oil and natural gas, Ottawa and the provinces will have to make up that shortfall with strong financial and bureaucratic incentives. This is critical both to preserve the competitiveness of our energy sector in the long run and to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

The fact that Suncor is refocusing on its traditional oil sands operations should not be thought of as a company reneging on its green commitments, but rather a failure of the incentive ecosystem to bring those commitments to fruition.

This editorial was written and published by the Globe & Mail on August 25, 2023.

Suncor, one of the leading companies in the oil sands, for years had another side to its corporate persona, one that invested in solar and wind power and had a chief sustainability officer among its top executives. That’s all in the past. Suncor sold its solar and wind assets last year. Rich Kruger, a long-time Exxon executive, became CEO in the spring. He’s scrapping the chief sustainability officer job, and in mid-August Mr. Kruger said Suncor had put a “disproportionate emphasis on the longer-term energy transition.” His focus is fossil-fuel profits.

This sparked a round of outrage – but there shouldn’t be a shock. Oil companies are oil companies. People shouldn’t hope they’ll become renewable energy companies. Forget about that long-ago marketing effort by BP to advertise itself as “beyond petroleum.”

The oil industry has gone through phases in its approach to global warming. Trying to be greener was one. Before that, it sowed skepticism. Exxon worked to cast doubt on climate science, even as it had clear indications it was happening. The journal Science looked back in January at internal calculations Exxon made about the trajectory of climate heating. The study concluded that Exxon’s scientists, going back to 1977, accurately predicted rising temperatures. The existence of these secret forecasts emerged in 2015.

Oil companies no longer outwardly battle the validity of climate science, as the world is lashed by record heat, floods and wildfires, and instead have shifted strategies. This includes a promise of net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050 – pledged by Exxon, Suncor and the rest of the oil sands companies, and many others – but the same oil producers stoke wariness over the need to rapidly get off fossil fuels.

In May, Exxon said net zero by 2050 was “highly unlikely” because societies would not “accept the degradation in global standard of living required” to reach the goal. Exxon used to undermine climate science. Now it’s a sort of threat, that leaving fossil fuels behind will lead to widespread penury.

Suncor last month made a similar claim in its annual climate report, as it presented several future scenarios. In one, where heating is contained to 1.8 degrees Celsius, Suncor warned of the “enormous cost” of change. It ignored the Paris Agreement goal of limiting heating to 1.5 C and cited a “free markets” scenario where fossil fuels thrive and heating hits 2.4 C. Suncor didn’t mention such a future – heating at double the current level – would be calamitous for everyone.

What all this means is moral suasion and talk of ESG will not be enough to drive down emissions from fossil-fuel production. Government action, whether it be carbon pricing or regulations, is necessary to propel change.

Regulations are already working, in particular to reduce potent methane emissions. As this space showed in May, total oil and gas emissions in Canada peaked eight years ago and have since fallen 7 per cent, as output of fossil fuels rose 16 per cent.

The larger goal is to cut oil and gas emissions by about 40 per cent by 2030. It’s an ambitious target. The federal Liberals have proposed an industry-specific emissions cap but it’s unclear how it would work, and the Liberals have also said they would not force a reduction in oil and gas production absent lower demand for the products.

This space has argued for a stronger use of the carbon tax. Look at Suncor. Even with the rising carbon tax, Suncor estimates its carbon costs at just $1.70 a barrel, from now through the early 2030s. The fiscal pinch has to be stiffer to push companies to speed efforts to further cut emissions.

Meanwhile, the oil sands companies are working on a $16.5-billion carbon capture project to help cut about onequarter of their emissions by 2030. That’s welcome, but the companies want taxpayers to pay for the majority of the project. Some public funding is reasonable – Ottawa is working on but hasn’t finalized a major tax credit, and Alberta is doing the same. But the size of the ask is aggressive, given that Canadian Natural Resources and Suncor, the two largest firms, together booked profits of $20-billion last year.

Lowering emissions in the oil sands through carbon pricing and smart regulations is essential. But it’s only part of what needs to be changed. As long as people keep buying fossil fuels, climate-heating emissions will continue. The real solution is reducing demand – and that’s where governments may be able to make the biggest difference.

This opinion was written by David Olive and was published in the Toronto Star on August 24, 2023.

Once upon a time, Big Oil pledged to reduce its fossil fuel production, slash its greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), and invest more in clean renewable energy and less in oil and gas.

Big Oil, including Calgary’s Suncor Energy Inc., the largest Canadian oil firm, also committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

That was in the late 2010s, when slumping oil prices prompted Big Oil to invest in what it expected to be lucrative clean-energy alternatives like wind and solar power, biofuels, and batteries.

Companies also hoped with its voluntary action in the fight against climate change it could avoid government regulations forcing it to reduce its carbon footprint.

But that time has passed. For Big Oil, playing a growing part in the energy transition is now out. Profit maximization from fossil fuels is back in.

“Today, we win by creating value through our large integrated asset base underpinned by oilsands,” Rich Kruger, Suncor’s new CEO, told stock market analysts last week.

Translation: Suncor “wins” by increasing production from its Athabasca oilsands, the world’s dirtiest source of crude. Suncor’s goal now

is to return bigger profits to shareholders with higher dividends and more stock buybacks.

That’s what the market wanted to hear. In the two days following Kruger’s back-to-basics vow, Suncor shares jumped almost seven per cent in value.

Kruger asserted that before he took the helm at Suncor last spring the firm was putting a “disproportionate emphasis on the longerterm energy transition” — that is, on getting with the world’s green program.

Suncor’s return to its oil roots is widely evident elsewhere in the global oilpatch.

ExxonMobil Corp. was rewarded last year for its well-known lack of enthusiasm for alternative energy. It posted a record $56-billion (U.S.) profit in 2022 on the back of surging oil prices.

“We leaned in (to traditional oil and gas) when others leaned out, bucking conventional wisdom,” Exxon’s CEO, Darren Woods, bragged in an investor call.

BP PLC has retreated from an earlier goal of cutting its GHG emissions by 35 per cent by 2030. The company now aims for a 20- to 30per cent reduction in that time. Meanwhile, it is ramping up its gas drilling program.

Shell PLC has scrapped a previous plan to gradually reduce its fossil fuel output each year.

Shell once planned to become the world’s biggest electric power producer, mostly with offshore wind farms.

But today, Shell no longer has a target for achieving that goal. It has cancelled planned increases in renewable energy investments, and dumped renewable energy projects with no short-term profit potential.

Meanwhile, “the energy system of today continues to desperately need oil and gas,” says Wael Sawan, Shell’s CEO. He adds that it would be “dangerous and irresponsible” for Big Oil distract itself from energy security.

And governments that have long pushed for decarbonization are now inclined to agree, after the energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Canada and the U.S. are subsidizing Big Oil’s untested carbon capture technology, which would enable Big Oil to increase production by sequestering GHG emissions.

Canada is poised to increase its oil and gas production by close to one billion barrels of oil equivalent in the lifespan of projects that have been approved or are underway, according to a leading industry analyst at Rystad Energy.

That’s a bigger increase than Rystad estimates for major oil producers Iran, Iraq, Russia, Mexico and Libya.

Back in the fairy tale period, it was possible to imagine that Big Oil, with its immense capital resources and energy expertise, could play a major role in the fight against climate change.

But the companies discovered that it lacked expertise in managing its alternative energy assets, many of which have lost money.

The cost of steel turbines used in wind power has increased by about 20 per cent since 2019. And the cost of solar installations jumped by about 14 per cent between 2021 and 2022.

In the meantime, the world oil price recovered, boosting Big Oil profits to record levels last year. That rapid surge in profits is a sharp contrast with the long-term payoff from renewable energy investments.

And the world is indeed consuming record amounts of oil, for reasons described earlier in this space.

Finally, Big Oil firms like Suncor and Shell have been under pressure from activist investors demanding that they refocus on oil and gas.

Were we gaslit (pardon the pun) when BP rechristened itself “Beyond Petroleum,” and its Big Oil peers followed with high-profile investments in alternative energy?

Or is Big Oil simply incapable of transitioning and is doing the responsible thing in ensuring security of supply for a world economy still more than 80 per cent reliant on fossil fuels for energy?

It’s some of both, of course. What is certain is that skeptics who believed Big Oil could not truly embrace decarbonization have been vindicated.

Is Big Oil simply incapable of transitioning and is doing the responsible thing in ensuring security of supply for a world economy still more than 80 per cent reliant on fossil fuels for energy?

This article was written by Linda McQuaig and was published in the Toronto Star on August 24, 2023.

“I play to win … We are in the business to make money and as much of it as possible.”

Sounds like someone’s been to business school, where profit maximization is the guiding principle.

In fact, these are the words of Suncor CEO (and business school graduate) Rich Kruger who last week announced that his oil company is refocusing on fossil fuel extraction and cutting back on plans to transition to cleaner energy — even as large parts of the country were engulfed in out-of-control wildfires exacerbated by climate change.

One could conclude that Suncor has reached a stage where its profit-maximization strategy has morphed into, well, insanity.

The world is currently at 1.1 C of warming above pre-industrial levels; and we’re on track to hit 1.5 C by the early 2030s — the point at which climate scientists believe there will be irreversible catastrophic consequences, including the drying out of the Amazon and the melting of polar ice sheets.

And yet, we’re not cutting back. According to the International Energy Agency, given current policies, world oil consumption will continue to rise until 2030 and then remain at or near that level until 2050.

And July was the planet’s hottest month on record.

But no worries; let’s just keep doing things that ensure wildfires get bigger, hotter and more out of control, along with ever-worsening floods, drought and heat domes.

Is there a word to describe this behaviour other than insanity?

Yet this is the norm, as we continue to accept the business model that prioritizes profit maximization, even when it leads to horrendous death and destruction.

Or as British writer George Monbiot once observed: “If you have psychopathic tendencies and are born to a poor family, you’re likely to go to prison. If you have psychopathic tendencies and are born to a rich family, you’re likely to go to business school.”

While concern about climate change is increasing, mobilization to fight it is definitely falling short. And, ominously, as the Suncor CEO’s words suggest, the immensely powerful fossil fuel industry — the main driver of climate change — is feeling frisky and freshly self-assured.

At the height of the pandemic when oil demand fell, the power balance shifted, empowering the global public and pushing Exxon, Shell and BP to make commitments to reduce their carbon emissions and focus on transitioning to clean energy — commitments that all three oil giants have recently abandoned.

Indeed, now with oil demand recovered and rising due to the war in Ukraine, the oil giants are strutting around with new-found swagger, as captured by the New York Times headline: “Big Oil gets its Mojo back.”

The last thing we need is for Big Oil — which has spent decades actively undermining global efforts to tackle climate change — to get its Mojo back.

But there it is. Geographer Jared Diamond has documented the collapse of several past advanced civilizations — the Mayans, the Puebloans of Chaco Canyon in New Mexico and the Viking settlers of Greenland — after they failed to adequately deal with severe climate shocks.

In his 2005 bestseller “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,” Diamond identified three key indicators of imminent collapse, including a persistent pattern of environmental change, signs that existing modes of production were aggravating the problem and the failure of the elite to alter course to stop the destruction.

All three indicators are clearly evident today, argues U.S. international security expert Michael T. Klare, who adds that the summer of 2023 — and notably Canada’s wildfires — suggest that the process of collapse may already be underway.

Certainly, in today’s world, where the business model still dominates, our elite is not only failing to alter course, they’re actively revving up their engines and charging full steam ahead.

They’re like the whip-crazy cowboy hooting with joy as he rides a nuclear warhead in the 1964 movie classic “Dr. Strangelove,” raucously whooping it up and yelling “heehaw” as he leads us all to oblivion.

This article was written by Mike Schreiner, the leader of the Ontario Greens and MPP for Guelph, and was published in the Toronto Star on August 22, 2023.

As an MPP, I’ve been sounding the alarm for months as Premier Doug Ford’s lies about needing Greenbelt land for housing have grown more and more brazen.

Finally, after this month’s auditor general’s report, we have proof of the corrupt process we suspected all along. If Ford is going to pave over our farms, forests and wetlands so wealthy elites can make $8.3 billion, what’s next?

Ford’s Greenbelt giveaway has Ontarians picking up on an ugly pattern: the funnelling of public goods into private hands, at the expense of the rest of us.

An obvious example is Ontario Place, a huge chunk of which Ford recently leased out to Therme Canada for 95 years to build a massive, pay-to-play spa complex on public land along Toronto’s waterfront.

From Ford’s negotiations behind closed doors, to his total dismissal of public outrage coming at him from all sides, to the blatant transfer of public land into private hands, the Ontario Place sell-off is poised to become the next Greenbelt.

Instead of transforming Ontario Place into an affordable, family friendly gateway to green space and the waterfront in a rapidly growing part of Toronto, the premier’s priorities lie with billion-dollar corporations at our expense.

We see the same pattern in Ford’s move to sell off our public healthcare system — prioritizing privately owned, profit-driven clinics over patient care.

Once again, Ford is singing the same song, claiming it’s the only way to clear the surgical backlog even though it’s been well documented that a shortage of space is not the cause of the health-care crisis.

It’s the exact same approach he attempted to con Ontarians into thinking that paving over the Greenbelt would solve the housing crisis (spoiler alert: it won’t).

But if you’re Doug Ford, none of that matters.

This is a classic move out of the PC playbook — but never before has it been so blatant. Starve public systems to the point of collapse, then pretend privatization is the only solution. Hand over public assets to wealthy insiders and claim it had to be done to solve the very crises Ford made worse.

As Ontarians, we deserve better. I understand why, in the face of Ford’s selling out of everyday people for wealthy insiders, it’s easy to become totally disillusioned with the political process. But, if there’s one thing we can take from this, it’s an opportunity for people from all walks of life to come together and demand an end to this government’s wilful disregard for the public good.

Earlier this year, I tabled three bills designed to keep Conservative hands off of the Greenbelt by protecting it from land swaps, highways and gravel pits in perpetuity.

They’re designed to protect the Greenbelt, yes. But this fight is bigger than the Greenbelt. It’s about putting public benefits before the interests of wealthy, well-connected elites.

It’s about showing this government that it can’t sell this province out from under us — that we won’t stand by while they sell off Ontario Place, our public health-care system, or the land that feeds us and protects us from climate-fuelled disasters.

If the Greenbelt scandal has taught us anything, it’s that it’s time to take back this province for the public good. I hope you’ll join the many citizen-led organizations and me in fighting back.

This article was written by Gillian Steward and was published in the Toronto Star on August 22, 2023.

GILLIAN STEWARD IS A CALGARY BASED WRITER AND FREELANCE CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST FOR THE STAR. FOLLOW HER ON TWITTER: @GILLIANSTEWARD

Climate change is wreaking so much havoc across the country and around the world that it is now frightfully clear that we need to quickly slash the carbon emissions that are causing the planet to heat up at such a rapid pace.

But here in Alberta, oil and natural gas producers, with the support of the provincial government, are more interested in upping the production of fossil fuels than they are in finding another way to make money. This became more than apparent over the summer even as the horrors of climate change — ferocious wildfires, flash floods and warming oceans — were revealed on a daily basis.

In the face of it all, both the government and the industry chose to double down on their hubris rather than take responsibility for the harm engendered by fossil fuel emissions.

Premier Danielle Smith has never encountered an oil company that she didn’t want to cater to. So in February, when she created a panel to chart a long-rm vision for Alberta’s energy sector, it was no surprise that the five appointees were all influential oilpatch veterans.

The panel handed in its report on June 30 but Smith has yet to make it available to Albertans.

It’s highly likely that the report didn’t have much good to say about Alberta’s renewable energy industry, which is growing faster than even experts had anticipated. Who knows?

But in early August, Smith suddenly announced all pending renewable energy projects would be stopped in their tracks for seven months. The moratorium is needed, she said, because regulators had asked for one so they could sort out some of the industry’s growing pains. There is no evidence that this is the case.

This left renewable industry leaders mad as hell and vowing to invest elsewhere as they had not been consulted about the sudden freeze on billions of dollars worth of projects.

About 10 days later, Rich Kruger, the newly appointed CEO of Suncor, the largest oilsands operator (it also owns 1,500 Petro-Canada gas stations) announced that Suncor was going to forget about trying to transition to a decarbonized economy and focus on making money.

“Today, we win by creating value through our large integrated asset base underpinned by oilsands,” Kruger told analysts on a conference call.

Kruger is an American who worked for ExxonMobil — one of the worst corporate climate change deniers — for 32 years before being named CEO of ExxonMobil’s Canadian arm, Imperial Oil. He retired from Imperial, which also has large oilsands operations, four years ago and returned to Texas. Now he has been lured back to re-energize Suncor, which at one time made great efforts to appear environmentally friendly. That stage is obviously over.

If you live in Alberta all of this can be utterly confusing.

We have climate refugees from the Northwest Territories flying and driving to Alberta in droves to escape the wildfires there. Accommodation and other services are being provided in various parts of the province because no one really knows how long it will be before they can go home.

We watch the blazing incineration of homes and businesses in the Kelowna area as if it were happening here. Many Albertans vacation, have second homes, or relatives there: we know it well and are horrified by the scenes of red hot destruction.

But our government and primary industry are loath to even mention the words climate change. Smith has been asked by news reporters several times if she acknowledges climate change. She deflects again and again.

It seems the lure of money for the government treasury from oil and natural gas royalties, the lure of profits for oil company executives and shareholders due to current high prices trumps the devastation and suffering caused by climate change.

The skies are filled with smoke but the intentions of those who profit from petroleum have never been clearer.