VZCZCXRO7535
PP RUEHGA RUEHHA RUEHQU RUEHVC
DE RUEHON #0107/01 1001328
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 091328Z APR 08
FM AMCONSUL TORONTO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2437
INFO RUCNCAN/ALCAN COLLECTIVE
RHMFIUU/HQ EPA WASHINGTON DC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 TORONTO 000107 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O.12958: N/A 
TAGS: SENV PGOV PREL CA
SUBJECT: Ontario Environmental Policy Unchanged, New Minister Brings 
New Strategy 
 
 
Sensitive But Unclassified -- Please protect accordingly. 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY:  Ontario's environmental policy remains unchanged 
following the October 10, 2007 provincial election, which returned 
Liberal Premier McGuinty's government to power for a second term. 
Ontario remains on track to stop shipping municipal solid waste to 
Michigan by the end of 2010.  The province's message to the U.S. 
about contentious issues such as cross-border air quality, remains 
consistent - U.S. ozone standards are too lax.  But the way the 
message is delivered has changed with the appointment of John 
Gerretsen as the new Environment Minister.  Gerretsen's more 
pragmatic and multilateral approach towards advancing Ontario's 
environmental agenda is a strategy that seems likely to prove more 
effective than his predecessor, Laurel Broten's aggressive and more 
inflammatory style.  END SUMMARY. 
 
------------------------------------------- 
No Major Ontario Environmental Policy Shift 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (U) The McGuinty government's second term environmental policy 
seems largely consistent with pre-election environmental policy 
despite the Ontario Premier's appointment of a new Minister, John 
Gerretsen.  The province is maintaining its commitment to its 
five-point climate change plan entitled "Go Green: Ontario's Action 
Plan on Climate Change," released in August 2007.  The 2008 budget 
re-stated the province's intent to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) 
emissions to 6% below 1990 levels by 2014, 15% below 1990 levels by 
2020, and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.  To help achieve these 
targets the government says it remains committed to phasing-out all 
coal-plants by 2014.  Ontario is also still implementing 
"MoveOntario 2020," a C$17.5 billion plan that includes 52 rapid 
transit projects in the GTA and Hamilton, including construction of 
902 kilometers of new or improved rapid transit, to reduce the 
number of cars on the road. 
 
¶3. (U) Ontario's Next Generation Jobs Fund is a C$650 million 
program to generate new high-paying jobs by supporting the 
commercial development, use, and sale of clean and green 
technologies.  The province is also investing C$150 million to help 
Ontario homeowners fight climate change, conserve energy, and adopt 
green technologies.  The McGuinty government is continuing its 
efforts to plant 50 million new trees in southern Ontario by 2020. 
These three major programs continue environmental policy initiatives 
carried over from its first term. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
Ontario On Track to Stop Shipping Trash to Michigan 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
¶4. (U) The province is committed to living up to its pledge made in 
2006 to end the flow of municipal solid waste (MSW) to Michigan:  a 
20% reduction by 2007, a further 20% reduction by the end of 2008, 
and a total elimination of MSW shipments by the end of 2010.  To 
meet this timeline, Ontario has initiated some key projects.  One of 
these is the January 2008 decision to build a new C$150-250 million 
waste incinerator, the first in 16 years, in the Greater Toronto 
Area's (GTA) Durham Region, which will have a capacity to dispose of 
between 150,000 and 400,000 tons of trash per year.  Also, the 
province announced on February 21, 2008 that it aims to double the 
amount of household hazardous or special waste that Ontario diverts 
from landfills and the environment over the next five years. 
 
¶5. (U) On February 28, 2008 the Ontario Environment Ministry stated 
that it had given Liberty Energy Inc. - a California-based company - 
the go-ahead to build a C$120 million, energy-from-waste incinerator 
in Hamilton, Ontario designed to handle up to 400,000 tons of sewage 
sludge and 150,000 tons of other organic waste such as tree 
trimmings, greenhouse waste, grass, and garden clippings.  As well, 
on March 4, 2008, the government highlighted that the Malton, 
Ontario polystyrene-recycling plant, the only one in the province, 
which closed in December, 2007, would reopen later in the year. 
 
¶6. (U) In other recycling news, on March 28, 2008, the Liberal 
government announced plans to develop a province-wide tire recycling 
program to be implemented later in the year.  At the moment, Ontario 
is the only Canadian province without such a program.  Environment 
Minister Gerretsen highlighted that Ontario motorists will likely 
pay a fee of a few dollars when they buy new tires to build up the 
infrastructure needed to ensure that the tires are recycled at the 
end of their life-cycle.  Other provinces levy fees of between C$3 
and C$5 when people buy passenger vehicle tires; the money is used 
to recycle old tires into products from running tracks to roof 
shingles.  This program will also help Ontario meet Michigan's 2010 
waste disposal deadline as the Canadian Rubber Association estimates 
that of the 12 million tires the province discards each year, 
roughly half are shipped to the United States where they are burned 
as fuel. 
 
--------------------------------- 
 
TORONTO 00000107  002 OF 003 
 
 
Ontario Focused on Climate Change 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶7. (U) On March 7, 2008, the province announced the creation of a 
Climate Change Secretariat, which is expected to start by the end of 
April 2008.  The secretariat will work out of the premier's office 
and hold "climate change results" meetings every five weeks with the 
premier, senior politicians, and bureaucrats to assess interagency 
progress on the government's climate change action plan. 
 
¶8. (U) The province also is committed to participating in a 
broad-based North American emissions trading (cap-and-trade) system. 
 Ontario is pursuing partnerships with like-minded provinces and 
U.S. states to strengthen regional initiatives such as the Western 
Climate Initiative (WCI), Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), 
and Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Accord (MGGA).  Ontario has engaged in 
discussions with Quebec to set up a cap-and-trade system, is an 
observer at both WCI and RGGI, and may seek observer status at MGGA. 
 
 
¶9. (U) On January 16, 2008 Ontario joined the U.S.-based climate 
change initiative, The Climate Registry.  Through the Registry, 
Ontario works with jurisdictions such as British Columbia, 
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Quebec, as well as American tribes and 
the over 3/4 of the U.S. states, which are members.  The Climate 
Registry aims to develop and manage a common GHG reporting system 
that will measure, track, verify, and publicly report GHG emissions 
across borders and industry sectors.  The Registry will support 
voluntary, market-based, and regulatory reporting programs and will 
provide transparent and consistent GHG emissions data from its 
members, as well as a robust accounting and verification 
infrastructure. 
 
¶10. (U) At the Vancouver meeting of Canadian Premiers in January, 
Premier McGuinty said Ontario would organize the first-ever national 
climate change summit to provide an opportunity for all provinces 
and territories to share experiences and ideas to develop strategies 
for coping with climate change.  About 150 policy-makers, 
researchers, and scientists from across Canada attended the March 
31-April 1 science-focused Toronto Summit, entitled "Planning for 
Today:  The Climate Change Adaptation Summit."  The group agreed 
that data collection and management and information sharing must be 
improved.  The summit also highlighted that public infrastructure 
will have to be adapted to handle higher winds and extra rainfall. 
"Governments must build infrastructure like roads, bridges, and 
water pipes to withstand the harsher conditions of tomorrow's 
weather," said Paul Kovacs, executive director of the Institute for 
Catastrophic Loss Reduction at the University of Western Ontario. 
"The trouble is that scientists are fairly certain about global 
weather trends, but not so certain about what that might mean at the 
province or city level," he noted.  The Environment Ministry is 
organizing a climate change technical workshop for this June. 
 
--------------------------------------------- 
New Environment Minister Brings a New "Style" 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
¶11. (SBU) While Ontario's environmental policy message to the U.S. 
remains consistent -- the U.S. should do more to improve air quality 
- the new Environment Minister John Gerretsen's strategy is less 
publicly confrontational and more typically "Dutch" (i.e. pragmatic 
and multilateral).  The new Minister is not pulling his punches, but 
he seems unlikely to travel to the U.S. to deliver finger-pointing 
speeches as did his predecessor in 2006 when she railed against the 
inadequacy of U.S. air quality policy at the National Press Club in 
Washington, D.C.  On March 14, 2008, Ontario issued a press release 
criticizing as too lax new U.S. ozone standards of 75 parts per 
billion (ppb), announced earlier in the week by the U.S. EPA.  But 
Gerretsen is tackling the trans-boundary pollution issue from a much 
more multilateral approach.  He has only been Environment Minister 
for four months, but on his watch, Ontario has already joined the 
pre-eminent U.S.-based climate change initiative, The Climate 
Registry, and is currently in talks with U.S. jurisdictions about 
establishing a North American carbon-trading system. 
 
¶12. (SBU) COMMENT:  The environmental policy goals of Ontario 
Premier McGuinty's second-term Liberal government are consistent 
with the priorities established during his first term in office 
(2003-2007).  The new Minister, however, has brought a fresh 
approach to Ontario's efforts to achieve those goals.  Minister 
Gerretsen is naturally less emotional and more pragmatic in his 
approach to climate change and trans-boundary air pollution policy. 
Gerretsen's push to work with other like-minded U.S. state and 
Canadian provincial leaders to achieve their shared goals through 
multilateral cooperation such as The Climate Change Registry, is a 
welcome sign that Ontario's environmental policy has matured and 
will focus on achieving "the possible" rather than the futile public 
posturing of his predecessor against the perceived shortcomings of 
U.S. environmental policy.  We believe Gerretsen's new cross-border 
strategy will show results in the long term and will reduce 
 
TORONTO 00000107  003 OF 003 
 
 
frictions in the highly interdependent Ontario-U.S. relationship in 
the near term.  END COMMENT. 
 
NAY 
 
 
 
 
1