Time-of-use billing and Green energy

I sent this letter to the Markham Economist recently but it was NOT published. For those of you who live in the area, you will understand my message.

The letter did appear in the winter issue of the Libertarian Bulletin, the newsletter of the Ontario Libertarian Party.

Re: Time-of-use billing and Green energy

To the Editor,

Like many in Markham, I received the form letter from Power Stream, our electrical utility, that starts like this: “The Government of Ontario, as part of its plan to create a culture of conservation…..” Yes, a culture of conservation; Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals have struck again, in yet another effort to legislate our behaviour and to create to some ill-conceived utopia.

Rather than creating a culture of competition and free enterprise, where citizens of Ontario are given more choice in electricity suppliers at lower cost with less government interference, we get the opposite.

In the area of electrical production, where the Ontario government has a monopoly through Ontario Power Generation, McGuinty has sworn to shut-down low cost coal burning power plants and replace them with high cost solar and wind power generators that work only intermittently.

McGuinty has been convinced that the evil fossil-fuel burning power plants, will somehow harm the planet, so in the best interests of your great grandchildren (maybe) we will now be given the option to pay twice as much for our peak power usage or choose to do our laundry late at night or on weekends. How that helps the planet I’m not sure.

The problem is really not the price of electricity, because these prices are in line with the neighbouring States of Michigan and New York. The problem is that McGuinty has committed Ontario to long-term deals for alternative energy at outrageously high prices through the Green Energy Act.

The Ontario government will need greater revenues to fulfill contracts with companies like Samsung and its sweetheart deal with the province.  Electricity costs will rise, so much so, that residents of the coldest parts of Ontario may experience “fuel poverty” as five million British citizens who are on welfare do now. The additional fuel costs will hit poor and fixed income individuals hardest. For the rest of us, these ill-considered obligations will act like yet another tax during a very fragile economic recovery.

The Green Energy Act needs to be repealed and electrical production needs to be privatized. The next opportunity to fix the problem is less than one year away.