Ontario Liberals in Free Fall: Add Disingenuousness and Hypocrisy to Campaign to Woo "Progressives"--Updated

In their desperate attempt to halt their slide down the polls, the Ontario Liberals are preparing to spread out across Toronto's subway to distribute flyers charging the NDP with abandoning the environment while crowing about David Suzuki's pat on the back.

Oh the irony.

The OLP is hardly known for its commitment to the environment. I'm still waiting for Nanticoke to be closed down. McGuinty promised to do so by 2007. He has not only not phased out coal energy but has wrongly committed to go into Big Nuclear (something which Suzuki chides McGuinty for, but I'm sure won't appear in their flyer tomorrow). Although Liberals rightly see the NDP as the strongest advocate on the environment, the OLP is hardly in any position to call them out on it.

Second. Killing trees to convey an a green message on glossy full page flyers.

Third, fanning out across public transit lines to convey a green message when you're the party refusing to use electric trains in favor of diesel trains for a rail link to Pearson Airport.

 The NDP have yet to roll out their environmental platform, but I know this. The NDP has always been far ahead of the other parties on the environment. And, the NDP has one of the best minds on the environment, former executive director of Greenpeace, Peter Tabuns.

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Update:

The following letter by the ONDP was cc'd to the David Suzuki Foundation among many other environmental organizations. Guess David didn't find the time to read it. Either that or Mr. Suzuki is stuck in the same blue door red door paradigm that we saw shattered in the May election. Progressives do have a choice, and it's not the Liberals- never has been. The NDP has been and continues to be the most authentic choice for progressives, students, women, workers, small businesses, and the poor and marginalized.

"We are writing to outline the NDP’s position on renewable energy in order to expand on our commitments in our recently released "Plan for Affordable Change," the first of our policy documents.

The NDP is committed to aggressively expanding renewable energy, conservation and efficiency in Ontario as the path to the development of a vibrant green energy economy in the province.

To this end, we will maintain the feed-in-tariff (FIT) program for smaller projects led by farmers, municipalities, churches, schools, co-operatives, First Nations communities and private producers. We plan to expand the ability of community-based organizations to become significant power producers.

As well, we will mandate Ontario’s publicly-owned power generator (Ontario Power Generation) to engage in an ambitious program of large-scale renewable energy projects in Ontario, creating a sustained demand for products and services from Ontario-based renewable energy companies.

The NDP will honour existing green energy contracts and will ensure fair treatment of large and small renewable energy project proposals in the pipeline. We know Ontario has to maintain and build momentum for green energy investment.

To repeat, the NDP will continue to expand conservation, efficiency and renewable energy use in Ontario in order to protect the environment, stimulate good jobs and keep electricity affordable.

In fact, the NDP’s plan creates a more certain future for renewable energy in Ontario than the Liberal plan, which places a moratorium on all renewable power projects starting in 2018 when expensive new nuclear plants are projected to come on line.

Finally, please note that the NDP has yet to release its full environmental platform and we will announce details on a range of issues such as climate change and the protection of land and water in Ontario in the coming weeks and months."