Smoke & Mirrors

Bubba bucks good, green tax bad
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN

Before complimenting Toronto’s conservation efforts, let’s make one thing clear.

Many of the projects politicians these days tell us are part of the battle against global warming are nothing of the sort. For example, building new subways and retrofitting old buildings to make them more energy efficient both happened long before An Inconvenient Truth was a gleam in Al Gore’s eye.

It’s called “capital spending” and we used to expect governments to do it, considering how much they tax us annually.

In addition, so-called “green” initiatives only open new fronts in the battle against global warming if they result in things that wouldn’t have happened anyway. That’s important to keep in mind when governments claim new projects help make us “carbon neutral.”

Example? Spending billions fixing a broken nuclear reactor you had to fix anyway, is not “going green.”

With that said, last week’s announcement in New York at a climate change conference attended by Mayor David Miller, that Toronto will be one of 16 cities benefiting from a $5 billion private fund to retrofit old buildings is welcome news.

Headed by former U.S. president Bill Clinton, the fund is supported by five major banks, who expect to be paid back from the energy savings their loans will generate. Four big energy companies will provide cities with low-cost energy goods and services.

The total amount Toronto will get isn’t clear, but Miller said it will be substantial and dramatically expand a 15-year-old city program by retrofitting up to 1,000 privately-owned apartment buildings and city-owned housing, arenas and municipal buildings like City Hall.

Indeed, that’s one reason Toronto was chosen — it’s done this before.

If the hysteria over global warming gets your goat, think of it as a traditional capital spending program to save money on energy costs and cut pollution.

Miller didn’t endorse road tolls, already used in London, England, and under consideration by New York and Montreal to fight global warming, or, as we used to call it, gridlock.

While he’s mused about tolls in the past, for now, at least, he correctly argues that tolls can’t be considered until Toronto has a far better public transit system.

Good thing, too, because had the mayor attended any of the city-sponsored public meetings in which the city is seeking advice from the pu blic about what new fees and taxes to impose, using its new powers in the City of Toronto Act, he would have got an earful from citizens.

On just what he could do with any new “green” fees or taxes he’s planning.