Money For Trees But Not Transit As Budget Brushes By Environment
Posted March 22, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It’s supposed to be the biggest issue with voters.
But Liberal red didn’t turn environmentally green in Thursday’s budget.
Many critics are suggesting the Grits paid only lip service to the issue in this fiscal plan, and there wasn’t a lot of attention or money allocated to fight things like high energy costs and global warming.
But the Liberals may not be finished in this area suggesting more funding could be one the way.
What did they do for now?
Plant trees.
Finance Minister Greg Sorbara has put aside an extra $2 billion in what will literally wind up being seed money to put down new roots with the Trees Ontario Foundation.
The goal: help reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
More than 500,000 homes in the province will get energy efficient light bulbs, thanks to a $1.5 million program called Project Porchlight.
If you want to get an energy audit to see how green your home is, you won’t have to shell out all your own money. Queen’s Park will kick in about $150 of the cost.
More than $51 million will go to help develop alternative fuels to reduce the exhaust from cars. And $11 million will go to cities to help clean up abandoned properties or slum-like areas.
They’ll also spend money like water, with $28 million going down the drain to protect the quality of the H20 that comes out of your tap.
But there’s one thing noticeably missing that won’t make Mayor David Miller’s day.
While there was some money going to infrastructure, there was no major mention of transit dollars in the document, with the Liberals pointing out they’d already given $1.2 billion to the cause in last year’s budget. And two thirds of that went to projects in the GTA.
Critics say that’s because they can’t see the forest for the trees. But with all that money going to planting, you can be sure that they’ll at least be able to see the trees.
