A few dozen people attended a green initiatives support rally in front of Nipissing MPP and Finance Minister Vic Fedeli’s office over the weekend.
“Green initiatives have been scrapped recently by the Ford government. The change that we’re looking for is to bring back the initiatives we already had. They actually scrapped about 800 contracts with a lot of companies that were on board with green initiatives, and we can’t have that kind of representation just go out the window. I felt it was necessary to voice our opinion about how it will affect our future,” said event organizer Jason Harris.
“My message to Mr. Fedeli is over 190 countries signed the Paris Agreement for a reason. We cannot scrap cap and trade, we cannot scrap these green initiatives just to appeal to a very short-sighted relief of taxes. This is something that will affect future generations.”
Jennifer Plummer who joined in the rally, told the crowd the province is taking a step backwards.
“I think our politicians have a real opportunity to be leaders, to be heroes and could lead us to green, because this is our future. We can all work together,” said Plummer.
“I know people don’t want to lose their fossil fuels, you won’t lose your fossil fuels. We will find other ways of employing our people. We need those fossil fuels to build things so don’t worry, but we will be switching over. We need to move now, not 10 years from now.”
Shawn Moreton told those gathered that if they want change, and the future they envisioned, then they need to fight for it.
“We write letters. Letters to Doug Ford and to Vic Fedeli. We write letters to Justin Trudeau and Anthony Rota, when they talk about climate leadership but then buy pipelines with our tax dollars. We won’t let up, and we don’t let them forget that we care and that they should care too.”
