A quick look at the 2000 Ontario Budget shows that Ontario’s environmental deficit will easily top $3 billion this year.

"This budget will cost us dearly in years to come, for the sake of a few years of rapid growth", said Chris Winter, President of the Conservation Council of Ontario. "When you compare the dollars for environmentally-damaging practices against the commitments to environmental protection and environmentally-sustainable development, you quickly find out that Ontario is investing in an unsustainable future."

In reviewing the budget, Winter compared the commitments made for urban development, highways, resource extraction industries, and primary health care, with the commitments for agricultural and natural land protection, public transit, renewable resource industries, and reducing the environmental causes of health problems.

In the entire budget there is not one positive and direct commitment to environmental health and sustainable development. The closest is the commitment made to include environmental projects as part of the $1 billion SuperBuild money for infrastructure development. "If this money supports new sewage and water pipelines", said Winter, " then it will amount to little more than a subsidy for the development industry."

"What we needed to see was a financial commitment for transit infrastructure, compact urban design, energy efficiency and green power. These are the types of investments that will pay dividends well into the future."

"If you think this deficit isn’t real, think of what Ontario citizens may be paying twenty or fifty years from now for food and gasoline once we’ve cashed in the last of Ontario’s farmland for a quick buck."

For information: Chris Winter, (416) 533-1635

Backgrounder:  Ontario's Budget and the Environment