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Ontario revs up Suzuki to push climate plan

The Ontario government has enlisted the help of David Suzuki to sell its climate change plan.

Thestar.com
June 1, 2016
By Robert Benzie

The Ontario government has enlisted the help of David Suzuki to sell its “climate change action plan.”

Canada most famous environmentalist is front and centre - literally - in a slick new 30-second commercial promoting the forthcoming scheme.

In the ad, Suzuki stands on a stage peering up at scores of schoolchildren sitting above him in a theatre.

“What does climate change mean?” he intones from the lectern in a voice known to millions of Canadians from his decades of CBC broadcasts.

“Simply: that we’re in trouble and not enough adults are listening,” says Suzuki, who endorsed former Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty in 2011.

“And if we don’t act now, the damage could be irreversible,” he says, against a backdrop of highway traffic gridlock and a soon-to-be-homeless beaver and a caribou.

“Who will have to live with the consequences? You,” the scientist tells the bewildered children, some of whom raise their eyebrows and crinkle their noses in disbelief.

“So you’re going to have to solve it,” he concludes before a tagline appears reading: “Let’s not leave this for our kids to figure out. Our today. Their tomorrow.”

The ad, which will soon be broadcast around the province, is designed to highlight Premier Kathleen Wynne’s new cap-and-trade system, which puts a price on carbon.

That will make gasoline 4.3 cents a litre more expensive starting next year and mean an average of $5 more for monthly natural gas bills.

It will also usher in incentives to conserve energy bankrolled by the additional $1.9 billion a year the treasury will take in as Ontario, Quebec, and California get their joint cap-and-trade program up and running.

In March, Environment and Climate Change Minister Glen Murray conceded that there’s a delicate balance in promoting the plan.

“The energy ministry in the U.K. ran one (ad) that scared the hell out of people ... so a lot of people have been rolling it back,” said Murray.

At the time, he said Ontario would echo Quebec’s marketing approach.

“The Quebec ad on climate change was very grey, bleak rainy days with kids looking out the window at flooded lands and this is the future for these kids and then it flips to all of the new technologies and we’re driving electric vehicles and the solutions to it,” he said.

“It’s a very sobering ad on one hand; on the other hand, it’s an optimistic ad.”

Under cap-and-trade, businesses have greenhouse gas emission limits - or caps - and those who pollute less can sell - or trade - credits.

That’s designed to create an economic incentive to reduce emissions and, the government hopes, spur innovation to boost cleaner energy sources.