I appreciate your email on the E-Test and DriveClean program. Your observation that most smog causing emissions come from the United States is accurate and supported by the Auditor General. In fact, the Auditor General also noted that 75% of emissions reductions since 1999 have been due to factors indepedent of the DriveClean program. This to me indicates that the DriveClean program does not provide substantive value. Due to these reasons, I and my colleagues in the PC Caucus have committed to scrapping the program. I've attached the following link to the St. Thomas Times Journal article in which I express our party's commitment to scrap this outdated program: http://www.stthomastimesjournal.com/2013/02/01/drive-clean-revs-up-complaints.
I appreciate your email regarding this matter and should you have any other questions, please feel free to contact my office.
Sincerely,
Jeff Yurek, MPP
Elgin-Middlesex-London
Keep pounding them,and WE WILL BE HEARD!!!!!!!!!
-- Edited by NOVACLONE on Friday 8th of February 2013 04:35:00 PM
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Reality; A test of Mind and Spirit And BODY. (`-`)
"The auditor general’s report reveals that the worst-polluting vehicles are either exempt from emissions testing or will be tested using a less-stringent method. The program’s light-duty component does not require vehicles built before 1988 to be tested, even though they would likely have about a 30-per-cent failure rate.”
The sentences above is what scares me ... if DriveClean (as we know it today) is scrapped, I feel their next obvious target could quite possibly be ANY and ALL vehicles built before 1988 (especially if they feel the 1987 and earlier cars "LIKELY" (?????) have a 30% failure rate). Possible solutions the gov't comes up with ... limit the mileage any "vintage" (1987 and earlier) vehicle to the point that it just isn't worth owning one, raise the cost of a plate sticker to the point that owning an early car is simply out of the question for most, make catalytic convertors MANDATORY on EVERY vehicle, regardless of its age. There is a company in Whitby (GESI) making cats for lawnmowers, zambonis etc ... no reason they can't make one for an original Model A.
We (the masses) may hate the present but that does not mean the future will be better.
Damn that diet the wife has me on, I need a beer
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If at first you don't succeed you do have options ... lower your standards or just plain quit are the two I usually choose from :)
Been sending in letters to my MPP got this back from to-day..
Dear Mr. Armstrong,
Thank you for contacting me regarding the Drive Clean program. I appreciate your advice.
I agree with you that the Drive Clean program needs to be scrapped. For your information I have attached my recent news release on the Drive Clean program.
Drive Clean increasingly ineffective and unfair, says Pettapiece
(Perth-Wellington) – Ontario’s Drive Clean program is increasingly ineffective, says Perth-Wellington MPP Randy Pettapiece. It is also unfair, he says, because it mandates the emissions test for the people of Perth- Wellington, but not for residents in several neighbouring counties.
“Drive Clean has become too costly for too many people,” he said. “I’m also concerned it is becoming less and less effective.”
Drive Clean is Ontario’s mandatory vehicle emissions inspection and maintenance program, which now requires owners of vehicles that are at least seven years old to get emission tests.
Jim McCarter, Ontario’s Auditor General, released his 2012 Report this week. That report examined the cost and effectiveness of the Drive Clean program, along with other areas involving waste and mismanagement in the provincial government.
Since the inception of the Drive Clean program, more than 75 percent of the reduction in vehicle emissions has been due to factors other than the program, according to the Ministry of the Environment’s own figures.1 The Auditor also found that some of vehicles leaving the Drive Clean program with only partial repairs are actually worse off than they were prior to entering the program.2
“Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to fork over $30 million a year on a program that isn’t working anymore,” said Pettapiece.
This is not the first time that Pettapiece has spoken out on the Drive Clean Program. In April, he wrote to the Minister of the Environment to highlight the concerns of the County of Perth and the extensive research that County staff had conducted.
“We need to know the specific costs of the program to taxpayers in the County in relation to the overall benefits derived, and we need to know why neighbouring municipalities are not subject to the program,” Pettapiece wrote to the Minister in April.
Pettapiece also wrote: “Many of my constituents, understandably, have contacted my office wanting to know why they should be subject to the expense of Drive Clean testing, while their neighbours, living just a short distance across a county line, are not.”
It’s unfortunate, Pettapiece believes, that the County had to wait for the Auditor General to take a hard look at the program when the Liberal government refused to do so. Pettapiece also renewed his call for the Liberals to recall the legislature so that MPPs could debate the issues of the day.
What are you sending? Could one of your copy and paste what you had sent to your MPP? I will gladly email mine just looking for something to re write and send.