This thread started out as a protest about electricity rates, so I will continue down that path (although the minimum wage discussion certainly has been interesting!)
For those who are laying all the blame for high electricity rates on the Liberals, think again. Sure, their Green Energy plan has been a disaster for ratepayers, and was ill conceived from the beginning, but the focus should be on the root cause of the problem, not the minor contributing factors.
The root cause of high electricity rates can be placed squarely at the feet of the Ontario PCs and their Common Sense Revolution, lo those many years ago. Side note - Tim Hudak was one of the architects of this... something to remember when the next provincial election rolls around. Before Mike Harris broke apart Ontario Hydro and attempted to create a competitive market for the essential service called electricity, Ontario Hydro did all the planning, building, generating, and distribution of electricity largely free of political interference. The OH mantra was "power at cost" which served Ontario beautifully through the years - cheap electricity made Ontario the economic powerhouse of Canada. So, along came Mike Harris and his Common Sense Revolution... The Harrisites believed that the free market could serve the people much more efficiently than a crown corporation, so they went about their business breaking apart Ontario Hydro and creating a competitive marketplace for electricity - they in effect replaced one non-profit organization with many profit making organizations. To spur the process along, they practically gave away the Bruce Nuclear site and then proceeded to guarantee Bruce Power a higher than market price for the electricity they produced. Meanwhile, the part of the generating system that still remained in public hands (OPG) was hobbled with payments that barely allowed them to operate and maintain their generating facilities. So, now the stage has been set for the eventual privatization of the entire electricity system. I often wonder - should a service as essential as electricity be subject the free market, where the price will naturally rise to a level that is as high as the market will bear, or is a "benevolent monopoly" (such as the old Ontario Hydro) the best way to go? How would the people feel if their water supply was privatized, with water being sold at a competitive market price (which would certainly be much higher than what we currently pay.)
Exit the PCs and enter the Liberals. The Libs showed little or no interest in expanding public ownership of the electricity system - they instead have allowed private, for profit electricity generators to build natural gas generation facilities to meet the demand for electricity. Funny thing about this... these private generators get paid a lot more for the electricity they generate than Ont. Hydro ever did, but no matter... OPG would be squeezed to produce at ridiculously low prices to offset the difference. Then came the Liberal Green Energy Plan, where they contracted more private generators to install wind and solar generation with guaranteed prices of roughly $170/MW for wind and up to $750/MW for solar. During this time, OPG was regulated to supply electricity at $55/MW. The first bad part about this is that these wind and solar generators were guaranteed that all the electricity they produced would be purchased at those high prices, even if it meant that OPG had to shut down their much cheaper generation to accommodate them. If you look at the Global adjustment figure that is calculated into your electricity bill, that is to make up for the increased cost of wind/solar generation. (The Global Adjustment alone is responsible for nearly doubling your electricity bill.) This is why the Ont. Government wants to pay them NOT to produce... because when they do produce, it drives the cost of electricity up enormously. The second bad part of this is that wind/solar are not reliable... we want the lights to go on every time we flick the switch - not just when the sun shines, or the wind blows. This means that solar/wind cannot replace any fossil, nuclear or hydraulic generation - it can only supplement it, so we still need backup generation to fill our needs. Enter the privately-owned natural gas plants, which are going to cost us dearly in the long run, because they are only going to produce electricity when it is profitable to do so (ie: at a much higher cost than the publicly-owned OPG.) The third bad part about this is that the Ont. Government has shut down all the cheap, publicly-owned coal fired generation, thus reducing OPG's ability to moderate the electricity rates charged by these private generators (ie - OPG' slice of the pie is getting smaller, and will get smaller still after Pickering Nuclear is shut down in 2020.) Side note: On a global scale, does it make much sense to shut down our coal fired plants, when China is bringing online about 4000 MW of coal fired electricity every 2 weeks? On a more local scale, does it make any sense to shut down our coal plants when virtually all the pollution/acid rain we receive comes from coal fired plants in Ohio? Eventually, I predict that the government will sell OPG to private interests. If you think your electricity rates are high now, you ain't seen nothin' yet!
Bottom line here - it is the former Ont. PC government under Mike Harris that is entirely to blame for the high electricity rates we pay today, because they set the stage for all of this to happen. Now, Tim Hudak wants to ride in on his white stallion and save us all from the mess he had a hand in creating... what a joke!
