From: brewnoserii@gmail.com   
      
   September 11, 2016 - Globe and Mail   
      
      
   Ontario Liberals expected to reveal electricity cuts as election looms   
      
      
   While Wynne wagers that a pivot could reverse her sinking poll numbers, there   
   is little her party can do in the twenty months before the provincial vote   
      
   Ontario's ruling Liberals are expected to unveil promised cuts to electricity   
   bills in Monday's Throne Speech, tackling the province's most intractable   
   pocketbook irritant.   
      
   Premier Kathleen Wynne is calculating that such a pivot toward b   
   ead-and-butter concerns is necessary to reverse poor poll numbers and plot a   
   course to re-election.   
      
   But with many of the costs of the province's electricity system tied up in   
   lengthy contracts and long-term infrastructure investments, there is little   
   the government can do on the structural side to lower bills in the 20 months   
   before the next election.   
      
   The alternative is a straight subsidy to hydro consumers. The Liberals have   
   hinted at one possible way to do this: The province's climate-change plan last   
   spring pledged to divert proceeds from the coming cap-and-trade system to   
   lower bills.   Other    
   options include removing the HST from electricity bills or using tax dollars   
   to subsidize bills.   
      
   However they make it happen, the Liberals are certain to face criticism that a   
   subsidy is an inefficient Band-Aid solution diverting funds from other needs.   
      
   That may not much matter to the Liberals, who got an earful from voters in   
   Scarborough-Rouge River – a long-time Grit fiefdom that fell to the Tories   
   in a by-election earlier this month – as they campaigned amid a sticky   
   summer when the non-stop need    
   for air conditioning pushed bills skyward.   
      
   Finance Minister Charles Sousa talked up the coming hydro relief Friday, even   
   as he defended high electricity prices as simply the cost of building a   
   reliable system.   
      
   "Yeah, I am excited," he said.   "We understand that we need to improve and   
   mitigate those costs for everyday Ontarians, so they can have greater   
   affordability.  But at the same time, we needed to make those investments to   
   provide for that integrity."   
      
   The Liberals have piled costs onto the province's electricity system over the   
   past 13 years.  Some are in the form of upgraded infrastructure; others are   
   lengthy contracts with private gas, wind and solar generators to provide   
   electricity at fixed prices    
   to replace the province's shuttered coal plants; some are the price of running   
   the province's nuclear reactors, which provide the lion's share of Ontario's   
   power.   
      
   It hasn't helped that some of the government's more unpopular decisions have   
   been tied to the power grid: Cancelling two gas-fired power plants in the   
   Toronto suburbs added an estimated $1.1-billion in costs to be borne by hydro   
   consumers.   And the    
   opposition parties charge that Ms. Wynne's privatization of Hydro One will   
   lead to higher prices because private interests will be more aggressive than   
   the government in seeking higher prices from consumers.   
      
   Another problem, ironically, is a drop in demand: With consumers using less   
   electricity than in years past, the costs of the system are spread over less   
   demand, making actual rates increase.   
      
   Electricity expert Adam White said the overall cost of the system is largely   
   fixed, limiting the range of options for the Liberals to cut bills in the   
   short term.   
      
   "Most of the cost increase in the total cost of the system are fixed costs,   
   are baked in," said Mr. White, CEO of Powerconsumer Inc., an analytics company   
   that helps businesses become more energy-efficient.   
      
   The best option, he contends, is for the government to push consumers to use   
   more electricity in off-peak hours – largely at night, when the province   
   produces vast quantities of electricity that go unused – and boost   
   consumption overall to push down    
   rates.   
      
   "If you could boost consumption in the off-peak and put some of the fixed   
   costs onto that consumption, it would drive down bills," he said.   
      
   Such structural solutions, however, may not sate the Liberals' appetite for a   
   short-term fix to get them through to the election.   
      
   But the options for a straight subsidy all come with problems.   
      
   Giving Ontarians a rebate using money from the treasury – as the Ontario   
   Clean Energy Benefit did from 2011 to 2015 – would cost roughly $1-billion   
   annually for a 10-per-cent subsidy, Mr. White said, piling on even more debt   
   at a time the province is    
   trying to balance the books and tackle its $300-billion provincial debt.   
      
   Taking the HST off bills, meanwhile, would have a similar effect, depriving   
   the government of much-needed revenue.   
      
   And using cap-and-trade cash to pay for subsidies would take that money away   
   from other measures to fight greenhouse gases.   
      
   The government has suggested strongly it is interested in the latter route.   
   One section of the Climate Change Action Plan promises to "use cap-and-trade   
   proceeds to offset the cost of greenhouse gas pollution reduction initiatives   
   that are currently    
   funded by residential and industrial consumers through their bills."   
      
   The government could spin such a move as a way to encourage people to use more   
   electricity – such as by driving electric cars or switching to electric heat   
   – in lieu of burning fossil fuels.   
      
   But Keith Brooks of Environmental Defence said the money would be better spent   
   on more targeted incentives for such things, rather than simply subsidizing   
   electricity bills.   
      
   "I don't think it's good policy," he said.  "If you want people to drive   
   [electric vehicles], subsidize that directly, which the government is doing.   
   If you want people to use electric heat, create a program for that."   
      
   Ultimately, such policy considerations might take a back seat to political   
   ones.   
      
   Both opposition parties have been hammering the Liberals on hydro prices.   
      
   And on Friday, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath signalled that her focus for the   
   coming session will be blasting the Grits on bread-and-butter problems for   
   Ontarians. She said she would push the Liberals to adopt a $15 minimum wage,   
   stop squeezing the province'   
   s health-care budget, make it easier to join a union and take HST off hydro   
   bills.   
      
   "Costs are up, wages are flat and good opportunities are few and far between   
   in this province," she said.  "We have to lower hydro bills. There were   
   seniors and families who couldn't turn on the air conditioner this week when   
   we felt like it was 40    
   degrees out there."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)