Ontario’s climate change strategy released this week represents by far the most ambitious effort so far to lay out a strategy for achieving the province’s greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. The strategy, as suggested by environment and climate change minister …
Submission to House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities study on Railway Safety – April 2016
April 18, 2016 Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities House of Commons Ottawa, Ontario C/o Andrew Chaplin Clerk of the Committee Re: Study of Railway Safety Dear Committee Members I understand that the Standing Committee on Transport, …
Re: Reigning in runway trains top priority, Garneau says – Letter to the Editor, Published in the Globe and Mail June 7, 2016
June 6, 2016 The Editors The Globe and Mail 444 Front St. W Toronto, Ontario Dear Sir/Madam, While Transport Minister Garneau’s emphasis on reducing the incidence of runaway trains in Canada is welcome, the declining preformance of Canada’s railways in …
Letter to Editor Re: “Backup brake could have averted disaster” Published in the Globe and Mail, March 8, 2016
March 7, 2016 The Editors Globe and Mail 444 Front St. W. Toronto, Ontario Dear Sir/Madam, In addition to highlighting the specific failure of Transport Canada to require the proper setting of the brakes on the train involved in the …
Letter to the Editor Re: Development is stuck at a yellow light
February 23, 2016 The Editors The Globe and Mail 444 Front St. W. Toronto: Ontario Dear Sir/Madam, Jeffery Simpson’s column today (“Development is stuck at a yellow light”) is grounded in some fundamental misconceptions about the nature of the environmental, …
Comments to the Standing Committee on General Government re: Bill 135, The Energy Statute Law Amendment Act, 2015
Presented February 22, 2016 Introduction Thank you for the opportunity to address this important piece of legislation. My name is Mark Winfield, and I am an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at York University here in Toronto. I am also …
The New “Interim” Pipeline and Energy Project Approval Process: Bill C-38 Redux?
January 30, 2016 On Wednesday of this week Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna and Natural Resources Minister Gary Carr announced a new “interim” approval process for certain pipeline and energy resource development projects that were already in or …
Guest Blog – FES Adjunct Professor Peter Love: Energy Efficiency and COP21
Although there has been a tremendous amount of media coverage on the recent COP21 agreement in Paris, there has been very little on how the targets that were set will be achieved. It is certainly remarkable that this marks the …
Letter to the Editor – Globe and Mail and Toronto Star: Re: $37 Billion Hydro Fees
December 3, 2015 Dear Sir/Madam,While Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk’s report raises legitimate concerns over the breakdown of the electricity system planning process in Ontario, her report incorporates a number of serious misconceptions and oversights: Her claim that Ontario’s have …
The October 2015 Election and its Consequences: A Game changing event in Canadian Environmental Policy?
December 2, 2015 The defeat of the Conservative government of Stephen Harper inspired a host of analogies from the speakers at the November 27th SEI seminar on the Trudeau government, the Environment, Energy and Climate Change. The demise of the …