Kathleen Wynne says Ontario won't phase out natural gas for home heating

Premier Kathleen Wynne saysOntariowon't ban the use of natural gas for home heating as part of itsclimate change action plan.

The plan hasn't been released yet, but the Liberals havebeen coyabout details ever since a published report based on a leaked draftcopy said the province would phase out fossil fuels for homeheating.

But in her strongest statement yet on the issue, Wynne called thereport "false," and said natural gas will "absolutely" be usedto heat Ontario homes in the future.

"The criticism that we have been getting is that we were goingto be banning natural gas, and that is not something that we'redoing," Wynne said after meeting Alberta Premier Rachel Notley inEdmonton Thursday.

Natural gas is used to heat more than three-quarters of the homesin the province, and critics as well as natural gas supplierswarned that phasing it out would drive up energy costs for everyone.

"Replacing building heat and electricity would require $200billion in investment in generation and distribution just to
effectively duplicate what we've already spent on infrastructure,"Enbridge Gas CEO Al Monaco said in Calgary on Thursday.

"That would more than double electricity rates in a provincewith very high electricity costs."

Climate change is real, Notley says

Notley said Ontario and Alberta may take different approaches toreducing their carbon footprints, but both agree something must bedone.

"Some argue that climate change is either not real, or at leastnot caused by humans," she said. "Climate change denial is a deadend, for Alberta and all of Canada."

Wynne, who also signed an agreement with Notley to develop cleantechnologies to fight climate change, said she wasn't worried aboutCalifornia's weak market for carbon emissions.

Only about a tenth of the available pollution credits inCalifornia were sold in an auction last week as part of the state's
cap-and-trade plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and it raised$600 million less than expected.

Ontario is set to join the cap-and-trade program with Californiaand Quebec next January, and has already started spending some ofthe $1.9 billion it expects to raise from the plan each year.

"California is ahead of us, and we've got some catching up todo," said Wynne. "We're pushing ahead, and there's a lot ofinnovation that I know can happen in Ontario, and that's what ourcap-and-trade program is going to be about."

Ontario won't hold its first emissions auction until next spring,but has already announced how it will spend $1 billion of therevenue it hopes to generate.

The Liberals promised $900 million to retrofit social housing andapartment buildings to make them more energy-efficient, and $100million to introduce so-called renewable natural gas into the supplymix.

Wynne will deliver a speech to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce today, take part in a roundtable with business representatives andmeet Mayor Naheed Nenshi.