Doug Ford scrapped the environmental watchdog. Hamilton families are breathing the result.

Doug Ford scrapped environmental protection measures and the province’s own watchdog on air and pollution — Hamilton families are breathing the result. You shouldn’t have to choose between clean air and a good job. You deserve both.

Our kids shouldn’t be coming home from the playground covered in black soot. Families shouldn’t have their homes and cars covered in a sticky, grimy film, or have to breathe dirty air because they chose to make Hamilton their home.

As a father, raising two kids in the East end, I know just how much this has been affecting our residents, it’s affected me too.

Here’s what Ontario Liberals will do instead. We’ll continue the independent testing our community needs. And we’ll take a two-pronged approach: real incentives — including millions in federal dollars already on the table — to help our steel industry decarbonize, and real consequences when companies overstep and pollute.

This was never about steel jobs versus clean air. Our steelworkers’ kids breathe the same air as everyone else’s. We can have both good jobs and clean air. Ford treats them like opposites. They’re not.