Tariffs are the tip of the iceberg in Ontario’s election

Ontario is headed to the polls in a snap election that Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford has justified based on the need for Ontario’s next premier to have a strong mandate to respond to tariff threats from U.S. President Donald Trump.

But perhaps, a more important question for our would-be leaders is whether they will follow Trump's lead in dismissing the benefits of action on climate change and join the rush to sacrifice other environmental, human health and democratic safeguards, while falsely promising that doing so will reduce the price of eggs.

No one wants to see exports from Ontario slapped with 25 per cent tariffs, and we all breathed a short sigh of relief when Trump paused his terrible plan until March. But if we see this election as just about how to frame some sort of retaliatory action, rather than a chance to discuss how Ontario can differentiate itself from the agenda of an erratic American president, then we will be selling ourselves short.

Just one example. President Trump has no time for renewable energy and will do everything in his power to stop the erection of windmills he doesn’t like looking at from his golf courses and solar panels that might somehow mar fields of corn.  

Ontario hasn’t exactly been going gangbusters on solar and wind energy in the last six years, but we haven’t completely closed the door on the possibility of harnessing the lowest-cost source of energy available today.  

China, Europe and many countries in Asia, and even the Middle East, meanwhile, are pouring massive resources into solar and wind development.  That’s not going to stop for the simple reason that the economics make, as Trump would say, beautiful sense for these places.  They make beautiful sense here, too.  Which of our candidates will recognize that?

Similarly, America’s new president is no fan of electric vehicles.  But again, China is not going to take its foot off the accelerator of EV development, no matter what Trump does to install speed bumps in the United States.  China’s domestic and other export markets are plenty big enough to sustain the growth of its EV industry without enthusiastic support from the U.S.  

So, American automakers are going to have to decide if they are going to cede the EV market to China once and for all, or if they are going to fight for their own future.  Is Ontario going to stick to its guns on shifting to building EVs, or are we going to join the Trump forces in perpetuating inferior technology and trying to protect domestic markets from superior imports?  How long can we maintain walls around an outdated industry supplying second-class products?  Experience tells us, not long.

President Trump doesn’t like water-conserving shower heads and feels we should embrace waste in all our products, if it lowers up-front costs (doubtful) or improves performance (also doubtful).  If Trump actually ran any of the hotels with his name on them, he would understand the benefits of refrigerators that keep things perfectly cold with less power and shower heads that provide a perfectly decent cleanliness with less water.  

Ontario has a pretty decent track record of embracing energy efficiency because we know it is the smart way to meet the demand for services —from a cold beer to a well-lit lobby.  But we can do a lot more.  Who is going to help Ontarians install heat pumps, insulation or EV chargers in a way that makes these money-saving technologies truly accessible to everyone in the province?

It appears the Trump administration is also quite willing to throw that country’s natural areas under the bus in the name of a quick grab for resources.  Opening areas like the north coast of Alaska and ocean coastlines for oil and gas drilling is an answer to a problem that doesn’t exist. The U.S. has plenty of fossil fuels.  The real problem is the need to shift away from these climate-damaging sources.  

But just as this drilling could devastate wildlife, like barren-ground caribou that move between the Yukon and Alaska, Ontario faces its own critical trade-offs: Will we rush into mining minerals from carbon-rich areas like peatlands at any cost, or will we take great care to not set off a carbon bomb?  Where do our candidates stand on working with Indigenous Peoples to ensure any development in globally-intact ecosystems is done with tremendous care and a long-term vision?

Tariffs are really the tip of the iceberg when it comes to responding to the Trump agenda.  We need to carefully examine where all the candidates stand on protecting our home province and on investing in an economic and social future that can help us thrive in the face of whatever the United States throws at us.

Tim Gray is Executive Director of Environmental Defence Canada.