{"id":5310,"date":"2026-04-16T02:57:43","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T02:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cleaneconomyfund.ca\/?page_id=5310"},"modified":"2026-04-22T17:58:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T17:58:16","slug":"coalphaseout","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.cleaneconomyfund.ca\/fr\/coalphaseout\/","title":{"rendered":"Marking 12 years of a coal-free Ontario"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"April 2026
Eric Campbell & Chris Turner<\/b><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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How philanthropy sparked the biggest GHG reduction in North American history<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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NB: This article is featured in The Philanthropist and is re-printed with its permission. Read the original article here<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Twelve years ago, in April 2014, the last remaining coal-fired power plant in Ontario closed for good. It was the final shuttering in a ten-year phaseout in which the province eliminated five heavily-polluting power plants, replacing them with a combination of renewable energy, gas generation, nuclear, and energy conservation programs. To this day that phaseout remains the <\/span>single largest<\/span><\/a> greenhouse gas reduction effort in North American history. It\u2019s also recognized worldwide as an example of the kind of orderly energy transition we need for achieving a net-zero emissions economy. And it was all incubated by philanthropy.<\/span><\/p>

Philanthropy\u2019s role in the Ontario coal phaseout is a story rarely told. So, on this 12-year anniversary, let\u2019s tell it. Not only to celebrate the power of strategic philanthropy, but also to acknowledge the urgent lessons it still offers. Coal, after all, remains the world\u2019s <\/span>biggest single source<\/span><\/a> of climate pollution, and its phaseout \u2013 including still in other parts of Canada \u2013 is fundamental to the net-zero transition<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The Coalition & The Campaign<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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In the mid-1990s, the Toronto-based environmental charity Pollution Probe began exploring a campaign to address air quality in Ontario. At the time, climate change was nowhere on the public\u2019s radar. What was on the public\u2019s radar, however, was smog, which Ontario\u2019s coal plants were a primary contributor to. The smog issue in Ontario had been worsening, with Ontario experiencing 14 smog alerts in 1995, rising to 27 by 2002, and leaving many Ontarians worried about the resulting health risks. So the wisdom in the Pollution Probe boardroom was to create a campaign targeting coal but through the lens of health and economic impacts. Such a campaign would necessarily need to draw on a diverse group of advocates.<\/span><\/p>

Emerging from these discussions, in 1997, was the creation of a central command, named Ontario Clean Air Alliance, to be led by Pollution Probe\u2019s Jack Gibbons. Jack immediately went to work assembling the broad coalition that the strategic campaign required. The group, which eventually reached a total of 90 partner organizations, included medical associations and public health watchdogs, legal advocacy groups, green energy proponents, conservation organizations, cottager associations and all sorts of grassroots groups. This broad diversity is <\/span>credited<\/span><\/a> as being fundamental to the campaign\u2019s eventual success.<\/span><\/p>

Given the public\u2019s chief concern around the health impacts of smog, the campaign also elected to focus on the public health outcomes of burning coal, communicating predominantly through one of the coalition\u2019s members, the Ontario Medical Association.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

According to Bruce Lourie, one of the OCAA\u2019s founders while working with Pollution Probe, the health-first lens was absolutely key to the campaign\u2019s success. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t the concern for climate change that drove public alarm about coal,\u201d he notes, \u201cit was the concern for kids with asthma and hospital visits.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

In 1998, the campaign documented these health impacts via a powerful <\/span>research report<\/span><\/a> released by the Ontario Medical Association. The dramatic image of doctors at a podium warning of the dangerous effects of excess smog, and its linkage to coal-fired plants, was the key ingredient in attracting public attention, and by extension, political attention. \u201cThat\u2019s what drove the political will to deal with it,\u201d Lourie confirms.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Meanwhile, the OCAA and coalition members worked hard to generate a cross-party consensus, such that by the 2003 provincial election the phaseout of coal was a central plank in the platforms of the incumbent Progressive Conservatives as well as the opposition Liberals and the NDP. The only distinguishing feature in their commitments was the promised timelines.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

In the end, it was the Ontario Liberals that won that election, and from 2003 to 2014 the government worked with Ontario\u2019s independent electricity system operator to plan out and carefully implement a complete phase-out of coal-fired power that neither risked the system\u2019s reliability nor electricity\u2019s affordability. In 2014, the Thunder Bay generating station was the last to shutter, completing the journey to zero coal, <\/span>zero<\/span><\/a> smog days and, let\u2019s not forget, a reduction of more than <\/span>30 million tonnes<\/span><\/a> of yearly climate pollution.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Demolition of Ontario\u2019s Nanticoke coal-fired power plant in 2019<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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The Philanthropic Role<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Supporting this journey, from day one, was philanthropy. The first funder to step in was the Laidlaw Foundation. Laidlaw, where Bruce Lourie also served as an advisor, made the initial grant to launch the Ontario Clean Air Alliance. It also provided funding to the Ontario Medical Association, including for a new environmental director position, thus cementing the OMA\u2019s role as a long-term and influential partner.<\/span><\/p>

Other funders soon joined the cause, starting with the Toronto Atmospheric Fund (TAF), and then in time, the Metcalf Foundation, the Salamander Foundation, the Taylor Irwin Family Foundation, the Helen McCrae Peacock Foundation and the Echo Foundation.<\/span><\/p>

TAF\u2019s role was particularly vital, providing reliable funds that were flexible enough to allow the nascent coalition to find its feet, supporting everything from administration, research and policy development to partnerships and stakeholder engagement.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

This funding support continued even after the 2003 Ontario election, when the OCAA\u2019s job might well have seemed done. But both the OCAA and TAF recognized that the twists and turns of politics, along with the scale of the change they were advocating for, would require continued pressure and public engagement. In a 2015 case study, OCAA director Jack Gibbons highlighted the importance of being present and forceful right until the last coal-fired plant was shuttered. \u201cIf we had simply walked away in 2003 after hanging up a \u2018Mission Accomplished\u2019 banner,\u201d he said, \u201cI don\u2019t think we ever would have seen the coal plants go cold in Ontario.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

This foresight by the OCAA, backed by the perseverance of its philanthropic funders, was soon borne out. In 2006, the Ontario government paused the coal phaseout after a technical report called into question the government\u2019s plan. It was thanks to the stable operational funding provided by philanthropy that the OCAA was able to react, researching and advocating convincingly for a solution that would not see a retreat back to coal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Five years later, the age of coal finally ended for good in Ontario, and the OCAA could finally hang that \u201cMission Accomplished\u201d banner.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Lessons for Philanthropy Now<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The coal phaseout campaign in Ontario provides four important lessons for how philanthropy can be most effective:<\/span>
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  1. The crucial early boost<\/i><\/b>: <\/span><\/i><\/span>The coal phaseout campaign in Ontario never would have materialized had there not been a firm push from philanthropy out of the gate. For the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, this included vital funding to build a diverse coalition, design the campaign infrastructure, and conduct the research needed to make the case for the phaseout. Its at these early stages that philanthropy needs to be most engaged, and most trusting.<\/span><\/span>

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  2. The long tail<\/span>:<\/i><\/b> Persistence and follow-through are crucial. The coal phaseout would have floundered had it not been for continuing support from philanthropic partners. The coal phaseout experience underlines that a political announcement is not the finishing line. Success comes when philanthropy sticks with the effort until complete implementation. As Bruce Lourie notes, \u201cyou need to really recognize that it requires patience and persistence. If you want to make significant change, you can\u2019t do it with funding for only two years.\u201d<\/span><\/span>

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  3. Fund a diverse coalition<\/span>:<\/i><\/b> Advocacy campaigns succeed not when there is a single entity knocking on the government or industry door, but when there is a multitude of groups, well-coordinated and well-aligned, advocating from a diversity of interest areas, and knocking on several doors. The OCAA\u2019s coalition of 90 groups, from health organizations to clean energy advocates to cottager associations, made for a distributed and powerful force that neither politicians nor the coal-power incumbents could resist.
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  4. Sometimes the best climate campaign doesn\u2019t have \u201cclimate\u201d in the title<\/span>:<\/i><\/b> Although it resulted in the biggest single reduction of greenhouse gas pollution in North American history, the most powerful argument for phasing out coal in Ontario was actually a health argument, and the most influential coalition partner was an association of health practitioners. GHG reductions always come with co-benefits. Being strategic with climate philanthropy means recognizing that sometimes these co-benefits will be more reverberant and more compelling.\u00a0<\/span><\/li><\/ol>


    Ontario\u2019s coal phaseout stands as one of Canada\u2019s great clean economy achievements. And its impact continues to resonate today, with Ontario\u2019s coal phaseout being the proofpoint for ensuing commitments in <\/span>Alberta<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>nationally<\/span><\/a> and even <\/span>internationally<\/span><\/a>. For philanthropy, it\u2019s a strong model for how strategic funding can fuel Canada\u2019s transition to a prosperous, net-zero emissions economy.<\/span>
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    For further reading, we recommend:<\/span><\/b><\/p>