Ontario, Canada, to Dump Jerry Brown’s International Climate Change Pact

Gov. Jerry Brown’s international cap-and-trade pact to tackle climate change is on the verge of imploding following the election earlier this month of a new government in Ontario, Canada, that ran on the promise of dumping the very expensive climate change deal.

The highpoint of Gov. Brown’s effort for the State of California to pursue an independent foreign policy was the formation of the Western Climate Initiative in September 2017, which created the world’s top carbon emissions trading platform in partnership with Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard.

Emphasizing that unchecked climate change could profoundly disrupt the world’s economies and cause massive human suffering, Brown stated: “That’s the reason why California and Quebec are joining with Ontario to create an expanded and dynamic carbon market, which will drive down greenhouse gas emissions.”

Kathleen Wynne, as Canada’s first openly LGBT candidate for a provincial premiership, led her Liberal Party to 58 assembly seats and majority-control of Canada’s most economically dominant province in 2014.

Wynne and the Liberals ran on an even more extreme social justice agenda in 2018, which promised to fight global climate change aggressively, raise the minimum wage, expand free pharmacare, and establish universal child care.

But newcomer Doug Ford reorganized Canada’s Progressive Conservative Party to campaign directly against Wynne and her Liberal Party’s tax-and-spend policies. The Conservatives’ most effective campaign issue leading up to the June 7 election was blaming the Liberals for Ontario residents being forced to spend an extra 38 cents per gallon of gas and about 30 percent more for electricity to offset the cost of buying emission credits on California’s carbon trading exchange.

The Liberals were crushed with a stunning loss of 51 seats, while Conservatives won 49 more seats to give Ford the Ontario Premiership and control a legislative majority with 70-seats.

With Ford and the Conservatives taking office at noon on Friday, the new provincial government has promised that one of its first legislative actions will be dumping Ontario’s participation in Gov. Brown’s cap-and-trade pact.