But I can save money on potato chips now and donate the spare change to conservation /s

Unfortunately the provincial NDP has had a pretty poor track record when it comes to environmental issues. I think this just reflects the fact that the publics main concern right now is affordability, and especially since the trade war this has often come at the expense of environmental concerns (eg people are more open to pipelines now, because economic dependance from the US for many people takes priority over environmental concerns). So the NDP is kind of reading the room, I think. Is that a good thing? Well, it’s not a good thing for the environment. But I understand why its the move they are making from a political standpoint.

Serious question: what can we do about this?

I can understand why the NDP felt the need to do this though. Their mandate was on affordability, so they feel the need to slash taxes and put all their resources there (eg PST cut, free buses for youths etc). But of course money isn’t unlimited so this is going to come with some resources being slashed somewhere else. Tradeoffs have to be made. Apparently the tradeoff here was with conservation. Was it a good trade off to make? I’m withholding judgement on that for now. But I can understand why they felt that they needed to make it.