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Comment by Pxtl | Hacker News Reader

Disposal fees were a thing here in Ontario, the idea being that consumers should pay up-front for the cost of disposal, and therefore expensive-to-dispose things (like things containing batteries) should cost more.

We rewarded the government that brought this plan in by replacing them with Doug Ford, the brother of the infamous late Toronto mayor Rob Ford who was a literal crack-smoking drunk.

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I sure as fuck did not vote for Ford, directly or by the local MP proxy. However, I will readily acknowledge that at the time of the election that brought the Progressive Conservative party into power, the Ontario Liberal Party was giving off strong signals that it had essentially given up any attempt at excellence in its execution of public policy, and that it was seemingly bereft of significant insight beyond the then current state of governance.

They were also hindered by the public's perception of their performance in the matters of Ornge and Hydro One.

It seems strange to me to frame the results of that election as being a reward for re-internalizing the waste management costs of consumer products.

I realize it's a small part of a whole, but it's kind of hard to ignore the broad rejection of environmentalism that happened across-the-board in English-speaking Canada. Green Energy Act was hated and cancelled, eco-fees were hated and got cancelled, carbon pricing was hated and got cancelled, bike lanes are hated and got cancelled.

It seems like voters will reject any attempt to fight climate change if there is cost or inconvenience involved.

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