November 7, 2022 Mark Winfield Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change York University The Ford government’s More Homes Built Faster Act (Bill 23), introduced last week, is extraordinary in scope, dealing with virtually every dimension of planning and …
Darlington reactor announcement invites questions about Ontario’s high-cost, high-risk, and high-emissions electricity path.
Published in the Toronto Star and Hamilton Spectator, November 5, 2022 Last week Ontario Power Generation (OPG) announced its intention to proceed with a proposed new 300MW nuclear power reactor at the provincially owned utility’s Darlington site. The announcement …
Name-calling and simplistic narratives on development won’t make Toronto the ‘city that works’
Published in the Toronto Star, October 24, 2022 Discussions around growth and development in the Toronto region have taken some deeply simplistic and disappointing turns as we head towards this month’s municipal elections. Questions around how to manage growth …
Market ‘correction’ provides opportunity for GTA housing policy reset
August 22, 2022 Published in the Toronto Star August 25, 2022 A defining feature of discussions around housing in the Greater Toronto Area over the past few years has been the notion of an affordability ‘crisis,’ as housing prices rose …
Comments on proposed Frame for Clean Electricity Regulations
August 16, 2022 Environment and Climate Change Canada Hull Quebec Via E-mail: ecd-dec@ec.gc.ca Re: Proposed Frame for Clean Electricity Regulations Dear Environment and Climate Change Canada, I am writing to comment on the proposed Frame for Clean …
Ontario’s Deepening Hydro Mess
Published in Policy Options, August 8, 2022. Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives went into the 2018 Ontario election campaign promising, among other things, to fix the province’s ‘hydro mess.’ In practice fixing the hydro ‘mess’ turned out to be a lot …
Ontario’s Environment and the Ford Nation Redux
June 3, 2022 Published in the Hamilton Spectator June 9, 2022 The 2022 Ontario election has ended with a strengthened Progressive Conservative (PC) majority. Doug Ford’s win came though on the basis of a historically low (43 per cent) voter …
Ontario Election 2022: Summary of the PC, Liberal, NDP and Green Platforms on Climate and Energy Issues
May 19, 2022 A brief summary of the major Ontario party platforms on climate and energy issues for the June 2022 election is available here on the Sustainable Energy Initiative website. The Overall Assessment is as follows: The PC Government …
Four ways Doug Ford has changed the province’s politics
Published in The Conversation, May 17, 2022, The Hamilton Spectator, May 28, 2022. The dismal environmental record of the Doug Ford government in Ontario is well-documented. Despite some recent moves on “greening” the steel sector and electric vehicle manufacturing initiatives, …
Assessing the Ford Government’s Record on Environment and Climate Change
Versions published in The Conversation, May 3, 2022, The National Post, May 4, 2022, The Toronto Star, May 12, 2022. As Ontarians prepare to head for the polls on June second, the Ford government’s pre-election advertising campaigns are starting to …