Ontario’s auditor-general has pegged the province's electricity regime as a fiasco, a dysfunctional, overpriced, mismanaged system for most of the last decade.
In strong language and clear analysis, Bonnie Lysyk revealed a history of massive government bungling.
Ontario consumers and small business owners already know that the cost of electricity has almost doubled under the McGuinty/Wynne regimes, from 5.32 cents per kilowatt hour to 10.10 cents, with many more increases to come.
Most of the increased burden on consumers is going to pay for electricity capacity the province doesn’t need. While prices have doubled, electricity production has dropped from 152 terawatt hours in 2007 to 140 in 2014.
At a time when governments at all levels are planning to embark on massive infrastructure and climate projects — from mass transit in Toronto to carbon control programs in Alberta — the electricity report suggests Canada’s political regimes may not be up to the governance levels required.
The only people today who might still be standing on guard for Ontario’s coal-free, wind-racked and sunburned electricity system are the slew of corporations — wind farm sellers, gas plant owners, solar panel installers — to whom the Liberals gave fat contracts at bonus prices that were well above market rates.
The AG reports that consumers have transferred billions to companies supplying green renewables on the basis of contracts awarded at inflated prices. Because of the lack of competitive pricing for new power sources, nominally to replace coal generation, Lysyk estimates the extra burden on ratepayers at $9.2 billion — to pay for contracts at double to triple the going market price.
Over the next 17 years, she says consumers are expected to shell out about $133 billion in adjustments to cover the cost of the Liberals’ massive restructuring of the electricity supply industry. Many of the dollars will go to pay companies not to produce electricity.
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