Ontario’s Sustainable Development Plan Is Beginning To Fall Apart

In recent weeks reports about green energy jobs surpassing oil sand job creation, of Ontario taking big steps into the growing green bonds market, and many more stories that would lead people to believe that sustainable development is excelling in the province. Have been splashed all over the news.

Is this true? Or just stories that do not paint the whole picture?

Green energy programs have created around 1,000 more jobs than the oil sands. That part is correct, but there is several points that have been left out.

1. Clean energy programs have created 23,700 jobs compaired to 22,340 by the oil sands projects. This leaves out that overall oil production in Alberta alone, employs more than 120,000 people. If we are going to compare job creation between the two industries, would it not make sense to include all stats and figures? This is leaving out the comparision of how many of these jobs are temperary and how many are permanent as well.

2. Green energy programs would have been halted a long time ago without government subsidies. Below is a breakdown of how much is being spent to keep the programs afloat and how much it is costing the people of the province.

Ontario pays 11-13.5 cents per kwh for wind power.
The average price in the U.S. is 7 cents.
The average price for Ontario nuclear, water and gas is 7 cents.

That debt charge on your hydro bill was paid off in 2010.
The 10% clean energy rebate on your hydro bill is charged to Ontario tax payers.

Ontario pays 11-13.5 cents for wind power.
Ontario pays or charges Quebec 2.5 cents take our excess.
The loss is subsidized by Ontario consumers.
Quebec sells it to border States for 5 cents.
Consequently:
Manufacturers can move to the States and get cheap power; where a portion is sourced from Ontario and subsidized by Ontario consumers.
Source

Green Energy and The Taxpayer

The Ontario solution of subsidized ‘Green Energy’ is hitting hard on the pocketbooks of Ontario taxpayers.

In the longer term, the highly subsidized wind energy and solar energy subsidies are costing Ontario taxpayers in higher energy costs, and in higher costs.

The long-term impact on Northwestern Ontario is huge and will carry long term impacts. Currently, the Ontario Government is borrowing one billion dollars a month.

A small increase in interest rates will hammer Ontario hard.

Wind Concerns Ontario says that over the next twenty years, the Ontario Government is also going to be on the hook for up to $1 billion a year for contracts that are in the approval process are brought online.

That cost of up to $20 billion dollars is on top of other costs.
Source

This style of financial planning is anything but sustainable.

3. Ontario’s auditor general has just released the annual report that states:

$1.9 billion spent on “smart meters” did not help consumers reduce demand for electricity at expensive peak times. This shows that this green program has been a complete failure despite nearly $2 billion dollars being poured into it.

The report also states that the provinces obsession with public-private partnerships has cost tax payers $8 billion, with very little return. Public=private partnerships are a main focus in sustainable development plans.

This is also anything but sustainable.

4. Regional transportation is also a big slice of the sustainable development pie. The provincially operated Metrolinx has been implementing a regional transportation plan for the GTHA (greater Toronto Hamilton area).

This includes LRT (light rail transit) and other so called rapid transit systems. For the last couple of years the province has been looking for a way to fund these projects. Toll lanes, parking taxes, gas taxes, and many others have been proposed. None have been accepted by the people.

In the city of Hamilton, a bus only lane was implemented on the cities busiest street (King Street) as a test run for a LRT line (that will cost well over $1 billion to build). The test run has been in place for one year and the signs of it’s failure are becoming clear.

Business owners along King Street have been speaking out about how the bus lane has hurt their business’s. Below is a video showing signs in their windows stating no more bus lane.

As the project is wrapping up, several city councilors are ready to end the program before seeing the official report on it. Stating that they have already heard and seen enough to make a decision about the project.

Every single area that the province is implementing sustainable development programs, it is costing us billions upon billions of dollars and failing in every way possible. Our only question now is, how much more money and civil liberties are we going to loose on programs that are falling apart at the seams?