It was just last June that voters in this province were asked to make a choice between building the infrastructure we need or listening to the demands of the environmental movement. Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats and Steven Del Duca’s Liberals fully embraced the positions of the faux green movement.
If you hadn’t noticed, neither of them won the election and neither of them is currently leading their party at Queen’s Park. Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives not only won, but they also took more seats than they did the previous election, while telling everyone of their plans to build highways, homes and hospitals.
Now, though, we’re treated to stories about how more than 17,000 people have signed a petition put forward by the David Suzuki Foundation calling on the federal government to stop the provincial government from building Highway 413. The David Suzuki Foundation is named after the jet-setting, country-hopping CBC star who famously owned five homes while telling the rest of us to curb our carbon footprint — but that’s par for the course isn’t it?
Earlier this year, the Suzuki Foundation sent a letter to the Ford government calling for an end to Hwy. 413, enlisting the support of multi-home celebrities like Margaret Atwood, who has a downtown Toronto home and a place on Lake Erie, and Chantal Kreviazuk, who likes to fly between her homes in Toronto and Los Angeles. Michael Tibollo even won the riding of Vaughan-Woodbridge with 19,340 votes, more than the petition getting all the media attention and more than Liberal leader Del Duca, who campaigned strongly on stopping the highway. PC candidates Hardeep Grewal and Graham McGregor both won in Brampton, taking seats from the NDP by campaigning strongly for the highway.