Just touched down in Toronto for the media lockup with Environment Minister John Baird. At that lockup Baird will detail the industrial regulations his government will ring in in order to lower Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 and halve emissions of other pollutants. This is a highly managed communications event. There are three separate lockups in downtown Toronto. Media are locked up at Polson Pier in Toronto’s waterfront from noon to 4 pm. Baird will give a press conference inside the lockup at 2:30 or so but no news about the plan will come out until after stock markets close at 4 pm.
Activists are locked up from 2 to 4 pm at a hotel in Yorkville and industry types are locked up at a hotel near Toronto’s theatre district, also from 2 to 4 pm. On our flight to Toronto this morning, were two key advisors from the Prime Minister’s Office: Mark Cameron and Rohit Gupta. Gupta, who was once a top Bay Street analyst before joining the PMO is briefing financial analysts on the plan.
Meanwhile, in Calgary, Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Jim Prentice and Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn will meet with oil and gas industry representatives. That meeting will conclude, we are told, at 4:30 pm Toronto time. No one has told us where that meeting is being held.
And in Montreal, Industry Minister Maxime Bernier will be the government’s point man there.
There are no Baird press conferences after 4 pm although we are told he has a number of one-on-one interviews scheduled with a variety of media organizations.
Prime Minister Harper will also be in Toronto later today — actually, he’ll be north of Toronto in Thornhill — for an unrelated event where he’s speaking to a group of firefighters. His office says he will take no questions from reporters at that event.
Liberal leader Stephane Dion will respond to the green plan also in Toronto. He is at an event in Richmond Hill this evening. The NDP and Bloc Quebecois will likely respond from Ottawa.
Again — all will be revealed at 4 pm today. CTV Newsnet will have live coverage starting at that time. My colleague Rosemary Thompson will be in the lockup here and should be reporting as soon as she can once the lockup lifts. Look for lots of coverage as well on Mike Duffy Live tonight (5 pm/8 pm EDT) on Newsnet. And I’ll have a report ready for use by CTV’s regional newscasts over the dinner hour and we may have more to say on CTV National News tonight at 11 pm.