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Ontario’s Power Trip: Irrational energyplanning has tripled power rates underthe Liberals’ directionOntario Hydro may well have been a mess. But it was a mess that produced less expensive electricity In the summer of 2003, just before Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals gained power in Ontario, 50 million people in the U.S. Eastern Seaboard and Ontario suffered an electricity blackout caused “when a tree branch in Ohio started an outage that cascaded across a broad swath from Michigan to New England and Canada.” Back in 2003 Ontario’s electricity prices were 4.3 cents a kilowatt hour (kWh) and delivery costs added 1.5 cents per kWh. An additional charge of 0.7 cents — known as the debt retirement charge to pay back Ontario Hydro’s legacy debt of $7.8-billion — brought all-in costs to the average consumer to 6.5 cents per kWh. The McGuinty Liberals claimed the province’s electricity sector was in a mess when they took over in 2003. The Liberals’ first Energy minister, Dwight Duncan, said then that he rejected the old Ontario Hydro model. “It didn’t work. We’re fixing it. We’re cleaning up the mess.” Fast forward 11 years. Today, Ontario electricity costs average over 9 cents per kWh, delivery costs 3 cents per kWh or more, the 0.7-cent debt retirement charge is still being charged, plus a new 8% provincial sales tax. Additional regulatory charges take all-in costs to well over 15 cents per kWh.. The increase in the past 10 years averaged over 11% annually. Recently, the Energy Minister forecast the final consumer electricity bill will jump another 33% over the next three years and 42% in the next 5 years. Summing up: Whatever mess existed in 2003 is billions of dollars worse today. The cost of electricity for the average Ontario consumer went from $780 on the day Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals took power to more than $1,800, with more increases to come. The additional $1,020 in after-tax dollars extracted from the province’s 4.5 million ratepayers is $4.6 billion – per year! Why? First, the Liberal Party fell under the influence of the Green Energy Act Alliance (GEAA), a green activist group that evolved into a corporate industry lobby group that adopted anthropogenic global warming as a business strategy. The strategy: Get government subsidies for renewable energy. The GEAA convinced the McGuinty Liberals to follow the European model. That model was: Replace fossil-fuel-generated electricity with renewable energy from wind, solar and biomass (wood chips to zoo poo). In the minds of those who framed the Liberal’s energy policies, electricity generated from wind, solar, biomass – green energy – was the way of the future. The plan was implemented through the 2009 Green Energy and Green Economy Act (GEA), a sweeping, even draconian, legislative intervention that included conservation spending and massive subsidies for wind, solar and biomass via a euro-style feed-in-tariff scheme. The GEA created a rush to Ontario by international companies seeking above market prices, a rush that pushed the price of electricity higher. The greater the increase in green energy investment, the higher prices would go. At the same time, Liberals forced installation of smart meters, a measure that added $2-billion to distribution costs. Billions more were needed for transmission lines to hook up the new wind and solar generators. At the same time, wind and solar generation – being unstable – needed back-up generation, which forced the construction of new gas plants. The gas plants themselves became the target of further government intervention, leading to the $1-billion gas plant scandal.  To force adoption of often unpopular wind and solar plants, the GEA took away municipal rights relating to all generation projects, stripping rural communities of their authority to accept or reject them. To pay for the rising subsidies to wind and solar, the Liberals adopted an accounting device that would spread the cost over all electricity consumers. The device was called the “Global Adjustment.” The Global Adjustment draw on consumers grew fast and will continue its upward movement. In effect, the Global Adjustment is a dump on ratepayers for energy costs that are above market rates. During 2013, the total global adjustment was $7.8-billion. Of that, 52% went to gas/wind/solar/biomass. The GA for 2014 is expected to rise to $8.6-billion, adding another 2.9 cents per kWh for each electricity consumer. To oversee all this, the Liberals established the Ontario Power Authority to do long-term energy planning (LTEP) and to contract renewable generation under the feed-in tariff (FIT) program that guaranteed wind and solar generators above-market prices for 20 years or more. In 10 years Ontarians have seen four versions of the so-called long-term plan, suggesting there is nothing long-term or planned. The Auditor General’s report of Dec 5, 2011, disclosed that no cost/benefit analysis was completed in respect to those feed-in tariff contracts.
The numerous Liberals who have sat in the Energy Minister’s chair have had a penchant for believing how the sector should function, issuing “directives” from the cabinet. The directives created the most complex and expensive electricity sector in North America. The Association of Major Power Consumers issued a “Benchmarking” report in which they stated: “Our analysis shows that Ontario has the highest industrial rates in North America. Ontario not only has the highest delivered rates of all these jurisdictions; the disparity in rates also is growing.” The almost 100 directives over the past 11 years from Liberal energy ministers have instructed the OPA, the Ontario Energy Board, Ontario Power Generation and Hydro One on a wide variety of issues from building a tunnel under Niagara Falls to paying producers for not generating power, subsidizing industrial clients for conservation while subsidizing other industrial clients for consumption. Numerous new programs have been created that support clients in Northern Ontario, urban clients for purchasing EVs (electric vehicles), homeowners for purchasing CFL light bulbs and a host of other concepts without weighing the effect on employers or taxpayers. Were “green energy” jobs created? Government claims hit 31,000 in a press release in June 2013 but since then no mention of green job claims appears in releases. The recent budget of Finance Minister Charles Sousa reported 10,100 jobs in the “clean tech” sector, a far cry from earlier claims. Ontario Hydro may well have been a mess a decade ago. But it was a mess that produced electricity priced to consumers at 6.5 cents a kWh. Current prices of 15 cents a kWh will rise to over 20 cents a kWh by 2018/19, forcing the average Ontario ratepayer to pay an additional $700 annually. By that date the cost of “renewable energy” to Ontario’s 4.5 million ratepayers will result in an annual extraction of $8-billion to satisfy the perceived benefits of wind, solar and biomass. Over the 20 years of the FIT contracts, $160-billion in disposable income will be removed from ratepayer’s pockets to access a basic commodity, all in the name of “global warming” and renewable power without use of a cost/benefit analysis. Perhaps it is time for a change in the governing of Ontario and particularly the way the electricity sector is overseen. Parker Gallant is a former Canadian banker who looked at his local electricity bill and didn’t like what he saw. |
fighting wind scam
Rural Ontarians Treated Despicably, by the Liberals, and it Was Condoned by the NDP!
SOUTH KENT WIND FARM NEAR LONDON, ONTARIO
Credits: Mike Hensen/The London Free Press/QMI Agency
It is heart wrenching to see and feel the pain of fellow Ontarians breaking down in tears as they explain how the Liberal government drove them from their homes.
But to understand how cold and callous our current political leadership is in this province, you need to experience it.
Rebecca Thompson’s documentary, Down Wind: How Ontario’s Green Dream Turned into a Nightmare (Surge Media Productions), airs on Sun News Wednesday at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.
It is a story of reckless, agenda-driven politics resulting in shattered lives.
The Ontario Liberal government’s Green Energy Act isn’t just an economic failure; it is an act of brutal indifference to the human cost of politics.
A cost ignored by people living far from the thump of the giant wind turbines, secure in their downtown Toronto homes and politically correct theories; a safe distance from places like Ripley, Clear Creek and Lucknow, Ontario.
Many may not care – worshiping as they do at the altar of so-called green energy – that the jobs promised by the Liberals through their Green Energy Act were never delivered, while the cost of hydro skyrocketed.
But the human cost should matter to us all.
Giant wind turbines, as high as 50 storeys, with blades the size of a 747, were foisted on communities in rural Ontario with no consultation or agreement from the residents, their municipal governments having been stripped of their planning powers by the Green Energy Act.
Unlike politicians who pay lip service to “serving others” while stomping all over people’s lives and looking after themselves, Norma Schmidt spent her life in Underwood, Ontario in the actual service of others as a nurse and instructor of future nurses.
She and her husband spent their lives in the home they lovingly restored over the years; a place they had hoped to share with their grandchildren.
But Norma has been forced out of her home by severe migraines and depression, brought on by the relentless noise and vibration from the industrial wind turbines erected practically in her back yard.
She left both the job and the home she loved, escaping to a room in her daughter’s house.
It is not the life she worked all these years to achieve, and it is not what she deserves.
Do Norma’s tears, and those of others similarly affected, fall to no effect at the feet of Premier Kathleen Wynne?
Norma’s story is one among many, some of them told in Down Wind.
This is the same Dalton McGuinty/Wynne Liberal government that used public money to reward violent aboriginal protesters who seized private property and terrorized people in Caledonia.
That “occupation” continues today and the government, knowing that their voting base in Toronto couldn’t care less about some rubes in the country, keeps the issue quiet by caving into thugs, rather than protecting law-abiding citizens.
Would the government be as forgiving to people across rural Ontario if some were to blow up a few of the industrial wind turbines that have made their lives hell? Of course not.
There are no turbines thumping the night away in Don Valley West or Toronto-Centre.
It remains to be seen whether the people in such ridings, who overwhelmingly voted Liberal in 2011, will care more for their fellow citizens in rural Ontario this time around.
There are any number of political parties to support other than the Liberals.
Susan Smith talks about the Pre-Screening of DownWind! It was wonderful!!
Tonight I had the opportunity to watch a pre-screening of “Down Wind”….a documentary thoroughly explaining the influx of industrial wind turbines throughout Ontario during the Liberal regime. It was an amazing revelation!!! A brilliant production!!!
I was so excited to attend this show in Toronto produced by Canada’s Sun News.
I was invited to go because I have been involved with the fantastic work initiated by Shellie Correia (the original Mothers Against Wind Turbines TM.). Her persistent goal, as many of you are aware, has been to protect her son against 3MW Industrial Wind Turbines proposed around 550 meters from her home in West Lincoln. In protecting her own son, Shellie has extended her concern to protect all children within Ontario against the negative impact from IWTs. Her influence has been acknowledged worldwide and is now of significant interest to all levels of government.
Needless to say, the opportunity to support the production of “Down Wind” was significant to Shellie and all of us who have joined her work for the original Mothers Against Wind Turbines TM group.
The show itself describes the negative impact of IWTs on many communities across Ontario where over 6736 IWTs have been installed, approved or proposed and 1915 are along beautiful Lake Huron alone. www.windpower.ca.
Many of the people we have met at rallies were involved in the movie…..everything was mentioned…Mike Crawley’s influence, how animals react, the loss of municipal control, the depreciation of real estate, illnesses that prevail, including cancer which comes from lack of sleep, and impaired immune systems, due to infra sound and low frequency emissions. So much was included in the movie…even the plight of the tundra swans and the disappearance of earth worms, from around the wind turbines!
DownWind will be shown on Wednesday at 8 pm, on Sun News (channel 506 on Bell Expressview.) There will be a second showing at 11 pm.
We have been invited to attend the leadership debate in Toronto tomorrow evening. It’s a busy time for all conscientious voters to get the facts. We’ll keep you posted! Susan
Spain Dumps the Renewable Energy Scam, Before it Destroys Their Economy, Completely!
Spain’s Renewable Energy Disaster Draws to a Close
June 2, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Spain has been held up by the gullible and naïve (some might say, cynical and malign) hard-green-left as the model for our “new” energy future. Some “model”!!
The Spaniards have thrown 100s of billions of euros in subsidies at solar and wind power, and have achieved nothing but economic punishment in return.
The power generated is delivered at chaotic, random intervals: the sun sets every day and the wind stops blowing, just like everywhere else in the world; requiring 100% of wind and solar capacity to be matched by fossil fuel generation sources.
As a result, in the last decade, the true cost of power has spiralled out of control. However, the Spanish government used price caps in an effort to keep prices artificially low. But that simply left taxpayers with an even greater burden to cover the massive cost of renewables subsidies (which represent a state-mandated transfer from the poorest to the richest) – add mounting government debt used to keep the subsidy stream flowing – and it can be fairly said that Spain’s energy policy is nothing short of an economic disaster.
The much touted promise of thousands of so-called “green” jobs never materialized. No surprises there. Instead, the insane cost of subsidising wind and solar power has killed productive industries, with the general unemployment rate rocketing from 8% to 26% (and still rising) – youth unemployment is nearer to 50% in many regions.
The Spanish government is faced with a choice between salvaging what’s left of a moribund (and shrinking) economy and keeping the renewables gravy train rolling.
Here are two reports on Spain’s belated efforts to bring its renewable energy disaster to a close.
Spain close to approving new renewable energy rules: minister
Reuters
29 May 2014
MADRID (Reuters) – The Spanish cabinet could approve on Friday a law that will cut renewable energy subsidies as part of a drive to reduce a 30 billion euro ($41 billion) power tariff deficit, built up during years of keeping prices below regulated costs.
The new law, the thrust of which was announced by the government in July last year, set the rate of return for existing renewable energy facilities at 7.4 percent and at 7.5 percent for future operations.
Many renewable energy companies have made double-digit returns on investment under hefty subsidies. Spain has passed a series of measures over the past two years cutting, and in some cases eliminating, renewable energy subsidies and a number of investors have filed international legal complaints.
“(The decree) is ready to go,” Industry Minister Jose Manuel Soria told reporters on Thursday, adding that the decision to approve it at Friday’s weekly cabinet meeting would be taken later on Thursday.
The minister acknowledged the reform was bad news for companies that invested expecting higher returns.
According to documents annexed to the reform, to which Reuters had access last week, the government plans to cut renewable energy subsidies by 15 percent this year to 7.63 billion euros.
The new rules will be retroactive to July 2013 and many companies have already made massive provisions and writedowns in their 2013 financial results, anticipating the impact of the decree.
The regulation includes variations for a range of technologies – including wind, thermosolar, photovoltaic and biomass – and the year the assets were installed.
For example, assets installed before 2005 will receive no subsidy and will only be awarded with the wholesale power price, while newer assets will receive the wholesale price plus a separate remuneration.
(Reporting by Jose Elias Rodriguez, writing by Tracy Rucinski; editing by Julien Toyer and Keiron Henderson)
Reuters
Spanish Lesson For Obama: Green Energy Transition Unaffordable, May Soon Crash
Die Welt
Ute Müller
31 May 2014
Lawsuits may force Spain to bring its renewable energy experiment to an end, a green policy fiasco that has gone terribly wrong due to astronomical costs. It’s a powerful lesson for the White House that has often cited the Spanish model as one to emulate.
Only recently, Spain was widely praised as the champion of wind energy in Europe. What is more, all over the country new solar parks were built and renewable energy had become the main source of energy supply on the Iberian Peninsula. Those days, however, may soon be over. That’s because Spain’s industry ministry intends to drastically cut back on subsidies for “clean energy.” The whole country has to cut back, the industry ministry argues drily, and energy producers have to do too.
This argument seems irrefutable since the figures that are now assessed by the government are astronomical indeed. The subsidies that are going to flow into green energy projects on the Iberian Peninsula amount to a staggering 200 billion euros. Approximately 56 billion euros have already been paid out. The lion’s share of this sum went into rather generous feed-in tariffs for wind and solar energy which, since 1995, have attracted numerous investors from both home and abroad.
The remaining 143 billion euros are due to be paid out in the next 20 years for green energy projects that have already been connected to the grid, foremost for solar farms.
Given these sums, it would appear that industry minister Jose Manuel Soria has come to the conclusion that the only option left is to put his foot down. He now plans to cut green subsidies for the energy sector by about 20 percent, to 7.5 billion euros per annum. The minister, however, has not reckoned with affected green investors who are up in arms and fighting the planned subsidy cuts.
Moratorium on new solar farms
This is not the first time that Spain intends to take advantage of solar investors retrospectively. Numerous foreign investment funds, especially from the US, have invested heavily in Spain’s renewable energy in recent years, expanding solar energy production significantly. They were lured by promises by the then socialist industry minister who had agreed a fixed rate of return of 14 percent per annum for solar park investments.
“The sun can be yours,” huge billboards claimed. Thousands of Spanish investors were keen not to miss this golden opportunity either. As a result, solar power production on the sun-drenched Iberian Peninsula increased from 53 to 313 gigawatt hours (GWh) between 2007 and 2010.
Surprised by the huge demand, the government of socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero introduced a moratorium for new solar farms, guaranteed feed-in tariff were reduced to 25 years and the premiums were paid only for a certain number of hours of sunshine per year. After a change of government at the end of 2012, the new conservative administration upped the ante and introduced a new electricity tax of 7.5 percent, causing the profits for the solar industry to fall by around 30 percent.
A good opportunity for nuclear power?
This week, U.S. energy company Nextera Energy has summoned Spain before the International Centre for Settlement for Investment Disputes (ICSID) to demand redress. The U.S. company regards the new rules as a retroactive change to the original guarantees. Nextera Energy has invested heavily in the Spanish solar power plant Termosol.
Other large investors, such as a Deutsche Bank investment fund, involved in the Andalusian power plant Andasol, and French bank BNP have asked ICSID, a World Bank organization, for arbitration. Another group of foreign investors issued first lawsuits in 2011, based on the European Energy Charter which promises investment protection and prohibits expropriation.
If the investors win their case, Spain can expect claims for damages amounting to billions of euros. In such a case, the further expansion of renewable energy in Spain would then come to end end at once. The industry minister is not the only one who is aware of the potential consequences. Two traditional power generators, Endesa and Iberdrola, even see a good chance for new deals with nuclear power. They have requested an extension of the operating license for the Garoña nuclear power plant which had already been taken off the grid. Garoña is now expected to provide electricity until 2031. The investors believe that despite new security investments the nuclear power plant will be profitable. They expect that after the boom and bust of recent years the share of renewable energy will decline.
Die Welt (translation by Global Warming Policy Foundation)
Spain provides the perfect “model” for any Country looking to destroy itself in blind pursuit of “green” energy ideology.
Trying to power a (notionally) first world economy with intermittent and unreliable wind and solar power is nothing more than an infantile delusion. When the cost of the insanity is borne by millions of struggling (and probably unemployed) power consumers and 100s of thousands thrown on the unemployment scrap heap, it borders on the criminal.
Spaniards can only hope that their political betters’ efforts to unwind the mess haven’t come too late.
Experts in the UK, Finally Realize That Wind & Solar are “Novelty” forms of energy!
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| London, 2 June: A new paper published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation warns that intermittent wind and solar energy pose a serious energy security risk and threaten to undermine the reliability of UK electricity generation.
Many people – including ministers, officials and journalists – believe that renewable energy enhances Britain’s energy security by reducing the dependency on fossil fuel imports. The ongoing crisis over the Ukraine and Crimea between Russia and the West has given much attention to this argument. Written by Philipp Mueller, the paper (UK Energy Security: Myth and Reality) concludes that domestic and global fossil fuel reserves are growing in abundance while open energy markets, despite the conflict in the Ukraine, are enhancing Britain’s energy security significantly. In contrast, the ability of the grid to absorb intermittent renewable energy becomes increasingly more hazardous with scale. Germany provides a warning example of its growing green energy insecurity. Last December, both wind and solar power came to an almost complete halt for more than a week. More than 23,000 wind turbines stood still while one million photovoltaic systems failed to generate energy due to a lack of sunshine. For a whole week, conventional power plants had to provide almost all of Germany’s electricity supply. Germans woke up to the fact that it was the complete failure of renewable energy to deliver that undermined the stability and security of Germany’s electricity system. “Open energy markets are a much better way to ensure energy security than intermittent generation systems like wind and solar. It would be a huge risk in itself for Britain to go down the same route as Germany and destabilise what is still a reliable UK electricity grid,” said Philipp Mueller. Full paper (PDF) |
No One Wants to Pay to Dispose of the Gigantic Hunks of Garbage!
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Wind Turbines do Nothing to Improve our Air Quality!!! Money Wasted!
Gordon Fulks, Physicist, shows some sense on Wind Turbines
Gordon Fulks PhD Physics, explains the silliness of the Cuisinarts.
This is an OP ED in the Oregonian, the newspaper of record in the state as I understand..
Green Energy – Green Deception
Wealthy corporate giants like Apple and Google now hawk not only their innovations in the virtual world but an ever greater commitment to ‘Green Energy.’ Even Portland General Electric relentlessly hawks their Green Energy. What amazing virtue! What progress! But is it? There are dark clouds on the horizon, as we turn away from objective science and engineering to a look-alike promoted by the politically connected but scientifically challenged.
One of the dark clouds is certainly climate hysteria, which once motivated societies to sacrifice virgins to appease the climate gods, and today seems intent on merely sacrificing industrialization. But that is not my concern here.
I wonder why we are abandoning ‘Efficient Energy’ in favor of ‘Virtual Energy’ and why we are abandoning ‘Efficient Fuels’ in favor of ‘Politically Correct Fuels.’ I wonder why we are sacrificing our last open spaces to post-modern industrialization, why we are burning our food for fuel via ethanol, and
why we are destroying the earth’s last remaining rainforests to grow ‘bio-diesel.’
For someone who has long championed science and the environment, the utter folly I see before me is heartbreaking.
The Sierra Club I once admired is now taking money from the natural gas industry to
drive competing coal out of business and move us into the ‘Brownout Age.’
But how can that be? Surely, the natural gas industry will be driven out of business too, if green wins over fossil fuel. Not so! Technology is more complicated than simplistic good versus evil. The game with green is to ignore the fatal downside and keep subsidizing the corruption and stupidity.
If subsidies end, the nonsense will stop. Free markets quickly determine what makes sense. There would be no need for me to explain complexities to those sold on slogans. Thank god we still have competent engineers fighting to keep the lights on. For all others, let me continue.
Wind is very diffuse, requiring a vast environmental and financial footprint to generate significant power. Even then the power is far inferior to that produced by conventional means, because it is intermittent and comes when least needed. This can be solved by pumped storage, by backup from conventional sources or by tailoring usage to the availability of the wind. All of these are prohibitively
expensive with wind, because wind is already prohibitively expensive.
Pumped storage works well with cheap nuclear power, because it allows power plants to run continuously, storing power at night for use the next day. Who cares if this increases the wholesale cost of power from 2 to 3 cents/kw-hr? But the equivalent 50% increase in the cost of wind power is prohibitive.
Backup of wind power by conventional sources is greatly inefficient. Hydroelectric systems do not like to be constantly turned on and off in response to fickle wind. And migrating salmon suffer nitrogen induced fatalities, if water has to spilled without going through the turbines. Besides, we just end up trading inexpensive hydro for expensive wind.
Backup by nuclear or fossil fuel is extremely inefficient. Large thermal plants can take days to come up to steam, forcing operators to keep them running constantly to backup wind.
Building specialized natural gas-fired power plants that can be switched on quickly is also foolish, because they are inefficient. We would be much better off scraping wind altogether and building super efficient gas-turbine power plants that run continuously. Birds and bats would live longer. Those
concerned about their ‘carbon footprint’ would certainly thank us too.
Unfortunately, too many captains of modern industry live in a virtual world, selling gadgets, services, and even real power while promoting only the virtual.
Gordon J. Fulks, Ph.D. lives in Corbett, Oregon, and can be reached at gordonfulks@hotmail.com. He holds a doctorate in
physics from the University of Chicago, Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Research. He does not work for any energy or climate industry.
The Lying Liberals are Slandering the Conservatives. Here’s the Truth!
Creating Jobs while Rightsizing the Public Service
| LIES ARE LIES | – It’s been said by Liberals that we will be firing a hundred thousand people and this is not true.
– It has been said by Liberals that we will get rid of nurses and doctors and this is not true. |
| FACTS ARE FACTS | – The public service has grown by 300,000 positions since the Liberals came to power, jobs that we have to borrow money to pay for.
– About 50,000 public sector workers retire or quit each year. All we need to do is hire one person for every two who leave so we can reduce 100,000 positions in four years. – We’re not going to cut anything in public safety. – We’re going to hire more nurses and more doctors and invest $2 Billion more into healthcare than the Liberals will. – In fact, we will hire more front-line workers to improve services we all rely on. – We will treat taxpayers and tax dollars with respect. |
| THE BOTTOM LINE | – A PC government will hire more doctors and nurses.
– We will invest in education, improving math and science programs, keep all-day kindergarten and provide more assistance for students with special needs. – We will replace one public servant for every two who retire and focus this hiring on front-line services. – Jobs will be created by attracting businesses through lower taxes, affordable hydro, and a balanced budget. – This is all good for your pocketbook too! |
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Together we can bring change Ontario.
Wynne Has the Audacity To Criticize The Conservatives Math! Hilarious!
As Someone who was Recently Unable to Accurately Count Backwards from 5, she has Nerve to Criticize Others.
TORONTO — Wonky math myths were on everyone’s lips last week, as the provincial election campaign kept up its long march across the province.
While critics were busy splitting hairs over Tim Hudak’s bad campaign math, they seem to have forgotten how excruciatingly bad with numbers the Liberals have been over the past 10 years.
On Thursday, we learned the Liberals are planning a secret bailout of a real estate deal in downtown Toronto.
The MaRS building was supposed to be a centre for innovation and research.
In 2007, the Liberals gave the project a $234 million loan, then in 2011, plowed in an additional $71 million for Phase 2.
It all went bad. The building is only 30% occupied and the government is stepping in to stop it from going bankrupt.
The building was supposed to spur the “knowledge economy.”
I well remember former Premier Dalton McGuinty holding a news conference there about seven years ago and holding up his BlackBerry built in Waterloo — to demonstrate what a wonderfully innovative province this is.
That worked out well, didn’t it?
Those reporters on the cutting edge of technology scrambled to report it on their smartphones.
It’s almost like the Liberals are the kiss of death to business.
They have the reverse Midas touch. Whatever they touch turns to crap.
“When did government get in the mortgage business?” asks Nipissing Tory Vic Fedeli.
He thinks the $317 million is just the tip of the iceberg.
“One thing for sure, this isn’t the full set of numbers, Fedeli said. “It could be the bulk of them. It could just be the tip of them.”
He wonders what side deals there are that we don’t know about.
He has every right to ask that question. This is the same party that insisted it would cost a mere $40 million to scrap the Mississauga gas plant. Turns out it cost $1.1 billion to move it and the Oakville plant.
Bad math? Stupidity? Or just incompetence? You decide.
The Liberals have been highly critical of Hudak’s job creation numbers, but notably silent on their own flawed and false job numbers.
MORE BATTLEGROUND ONTARIO:
- Wynne’s team violates school board’s computer use policy during campaign stop
- Ontario Liberals ready to drop $317M on failed real estate project
- Hudak says Ontario won’t miss government jobs he’d cut
Their Green Energy Act (GEA) was a masterpiece of doublespeak.
In a column in the March 1, 2009 Toronto Sun, the Energy Minister George Smitherman said the GEA will, “shape not only the way we do business in Ontario, but the way we think about energy and consumption.”
He got that right. Just not perhaps the way he expected.
Electricity costs skyrocketed and most of our manufacturing sector moved to the U.S.
“The proposed GEA has the potential to deliver 50,000 new jobs to Ontario in the manufacturing, assembly, retrofit and architectural sectors, just to start,” he said.
How many were actually produced?
In a 2011 report, then provincial auditor-general Jim McCarter said most of the these jobs were in construction and would last no more than three years.
McCarter also said that for every job created by the GEA, two to four are lost in manufacturing because of higher electricity costs.
Then there was the sell-off of Ontario Northland Transportation Commission that operated train service in Northern Ontario. In his 2012 budget, then-finance minister Dwight Duncan announced the government would sell off ONTC — shutting down a Northern Ontario train lifeline.
At the time, the government said it would save nearly $266 million over three years.
Turns out we got railroaded.
In her report last year, provincial Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk said not only will it not save money — it’s going to cost us as much as $820 million. It seems the Liberals hadn’t factored in hefty severance payments to employees.
The Ornge air ambulance scandal is well documented. Millions of dollars were squandered when a rogue CEO was given carte blanche to create a web of companies out of what had formerly been a public company.
But the wasted money isn’t the real scandal.
On Friday, we learned more troubling details when Ornge was charged with 17 counts under the federal labour code as a result of deadly crash last year that killed two pilots and two paramedics.
Among other things, the charges allege Ornge allowed the pilots to fly the chopper “without adequate training in the operation of that specific aircraft.”
And you’re still worried about Hudak’s math?
I think the Liberals are long overdue a class in arithmetic.
Apparently, they still can’t add. They haven’t been able to balance the books once — even though they signed a pledge saying they’d do so. We’re now looking at a staggering $300-billion debt.
Libs need lessons in history and ethics.
Then they can lecture the Tories on math.
Brilliant Interview with James Delingpole about the World Wide Wind Energy Scandal!
AUDIO: ALAN JONES SPEAKS WITH JAMES DELINGPOLE
ABOUT THE WORLD WIDE WIND ENERGY SCANDAL
Click on picture below to listen to 14 minute interview with Alan Jones and James Delingpole about the criminal scandal of wind energy that affects the economies, the environment and the health of citizens around the world.
"Mothers Against Wind Turbines™" Phoenix Rising... 