Environment motivating Ontario voters, pollster says

The greening of the political landscape has hit Ontario, says a leading pollster, and that has the province's opposition going on the offensive.

John Wright of Ipsos Reid says the environment has jumped in recent weeks from its normal eighth or ninth spot on the list of people's concerns to second (behind health).

That seems to reflect a national trend that has seen green-based worries increasingly taking centre stage.

Conservative Leader John Tory attacked Premier Dalton McGuinty's ruling Liberals for not putting in pollution abatement equipment at Ontario's coal-fired electricity plants once the government realized it could not meet its goal of closing them by the end of this year.

"Even when they knew this promise couldn't be kept on the timetable they set out, they did nothing to explore other options that could improve health and clean up the air in the meantime," Tory said.

Environment Minister Laurel Broten says she's waiting for a report from the Ontario Power Authority that will include a scientific analysis of the coal plants and what can be done with them.

Observers say the Liberals may be in a position of having to pay more than a billion dollars to put pollution equipment into the coal plants only to face closing them in a few years when other forms of power generation, including an increase in nuclear-based supply, kick in to take up the extra load.

As for the opposition's attack, the government pointed to what they say was a lousy Conservative record when the Tories were in office through the 1990s, a run they say included the slashing of the Environment Ministry's budget by 42 per cent.