The Ontario-California "deal"

There's lots of criticism of the deal Ontario Premier Daltom McGuinty announced yesterday with the Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger. From the Globe & Mail:

The oil industry warned yesterday that consumers will pay more at the pump and that Ontario could become more dependent on foreign oil under a new "low carbon" fuel standard being adopted by the provincial government. (...)

In an agreement signed yesterday with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mr. McGuinty committed the province to adopt the fuel standard, which would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from the province's transportation fuel by 10 per cent by 2020.

Oil industry officials said the fuel standard would encourage the province's refiners to substitute imported, light crudes for the heavier grades from Western Canada that have more carbon and require more energy to refine into gasoline. The lighter grades are considerably more expensive than the heavier grades.

"The Ontario policy eventually will result probably in more reliance on foreign oil," said Alain Perez, president of the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute, which represents the refining end of the business. And that's a problem "given the political volatility of the places the oil has to come from," he said.

Alan Lloyd, a former head of the California Environmental Protection Agency, said the low carbon fuel standard is a clear threat to producers of heavy oil and the oil sands, especially if more states and provinces adopt it. "Part of the rationale here was to try to discourage the use of some of the heaviest oil, which is loaded with carbon," he said.

Anyone who would sign a deal making us more reliant on more expensive foreign oil when we have abundant supplies right here in Canada has no business sitting the Premier's office in Toronto. Hey Dalton, I bet they love you out in Alberta California.