The Ford government is scrapping its targets and public reporting requirements for greenhouse gas emissions weeks after the auditor general found it would miss its 2030 targets by a growing measure.
Buried in the Fall Economic Statement on Thursday was the news that the government would be repealing sections of existing legislation which required it to establish emissions targets and report them publicly.
The fiscal update will abolish the need for the government to create targets, to report on their progress publicly or to come up with a plan to reduce emissions.
Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy, whose fall economic statement legislation will realize the change, refused to be drawn on details.
“We’re leading the way in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we’re leading the country, we’re doing it in a very aggressive way,” he said. “We continue to get results as opposed to just set targets.”
Repealing the law could have an impact on an ongoing youth-led climate case that is in front of the courts.
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Ontario’s highest court found the soon-to-be-scrapped law imposed a responsibility on the province to fight climate change, so it must do so in a way that complies with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The move comes only a few weeks after the auditor general scolded the Ford government for failing to properly report on its climate progress, which she said it could meet by “an even wider margin” than previously expected because of recent policy changes.
Modelling completed by the government in January found Ontario would miss its 2030 emissions reduction targets by 3.5 megatonnes.
Those calculations, the auditor general found, did not take into account the end of the federal carbon tax or changing electric vehicle mandates, according to the report.
At the time, Environment Minister Todd McCarthy framed the province’s emissions targets as a potential trade-off against affordability and economic development.
“We cannot put families’ financial, household budgets at risk by going off in a direction that’s not achievable,” he said at the start of October. “There are many who put forward targets that are not achievable and they’re failing.”
The environment minister had not released a new report since 2021, and a 2022 update posted on the government website just repeated the previous year’s information, the auditor found.
— With files from The Canadian Press
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