This Act is focused on preparing the health care for the potential challenges created by climate change, set standards for the public sector to reduce emissions, and setting up a committee to look into challenges faced by Ontario’s society, environment, and economy.
First up this Bill has several requirements for the Minister of Health:
- Within two years they must develop and public an action plan to preserve our public health and health care systems’ ability to handle the health risks, including mental health, caused by the climate crisis. (Such as an increase in extreme heat incidents, negative impacts on air quality, increased instances of forest fires or storm-related activity, etc)
- Establish the Climate Crisis and Health Secretariat to perform the functions outlined in this Bill
- Establish a science advisory board consisting of public health professionals and climate scientists to perform functions outlined in this Bill
Every four years this action plan will be reviewed and adjusted as needed, and the plan and any changes to it will need to be published on a government of Ontario website.
Climate Crisis Health Action Plan Act
Action Plan
The action plan will involve the following:
- Identifying health risks caused by climate change
- Identifying communities vulnerable to these risks
- Setting out a plan to communicate to healthcare providers/organizations/etc the strategies to mitigate these risks
- Establishing programs that advance research on the impacts of climate change on physical and mental health
- Assessing existing strategies for dealing with these risks
- Identifying healthcare infrastructure projects that need to be made a priority to deal with this crisis
- Providing funding to help healthcare facilities identify vulnerabilities in their ability to deal with the crises
- Providing support for research that will help identify changes that will need to be made
The action plan will also need to include a method to monitor:
- Infectious diseases of all types (water-borne, food-borne, etc)
- Novel contagious diseases
- Health effects of air pollution, including increased sensitivity to it
- Impacts of extreme temperatures on health
- Mental and behavioural health related to extreme weather events
- The health of communities vulnerable to the impacts of the crisis on health
- Harmful algal blooms
- Extreme weather events
- Food insecurity caused by access or supply issues
Climate Crisis and Health Secretariat
The Climate Crisis and Health Secretariat will be responsible for implementing the action plan and coordinating any research or communication that might be needed.
Science Advisory Board
the advisory board will be responsible for providing advice on the domestic and international impacts of the climate crisis on public health, as well as strategies to prepare for those impacts. Every member of the board needs to have expertise in public health, the provision of health care services, or expertise in climate science.
Ontario Climate Crisis Strategy for the Public Sector Act
Strategy
This part of the Bill involves developing a strategy for improving climate change mitigation in the public sector, in hopes the private sector will follow suit.
The strategy aims to cap within a year of the strategy taking effect, the emissions of greenhouse gases from areas involved in the public sector such as facilities being used by it, vehicles owned by it, and the integrated power system. The emissions are to be reduced by a minimum of 5% each year until we hit net zero. Any facilities constructed 2 years after this Act passes need to have emissions at least half that of a comparable new private sector facility, and anything built 5 years after needs to be net zero.
The strategy will also create programs that the Government of Ontario can use to encourage retrofitting public facilities, making vehicles owned by the public sector more environmentally friendly, and adjusting the purchasing guidelines for resources used by the public sector so the goals of reducing emissions are considered. (Such as evaluating the amount of greenhouse gases generated by a proposal, and disqualifying proposals that emit a certain percentage more than the other proposals)
The Minister responsible for this strategy will create annual reports on the energy use of the public sector and reductions caused by things like the retrofits.
Select Committee on the Climate Crisis Act
This part would create a new select committee. The committee will consist of no more than nine members, and will include an equal number of members from each of the recognized parties in the house and a number of independent members equal to the number of recognized members. (So for example, right now the Liberal and Green parties aren’t recognized parties because they don’t have enough seats. So the committee could have 3 PC members, 3 NDP members, and 3 members from the Liberals/Greens/independants)
The goal of this committee is to develop proposal on how to address climate-change related threats facing the society, environment, and economy of Ontario. They’ll have six months after this Bill passes to create their report.
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