RE:Premier Ford got elected because he was going to "fix Hydro" Facts matter. And the fact is.... We're still Paying for Liberal Hydro Blunders.
Unfortunately, when voters tossed out the former Liberal government of Ontario in last year’s election, they couldn’t rid themselves of the complete mess the Grits left in their wake on the electricity file.
As a result, Ontario taxpayers and hydro ratepayers are continuing to pay for the multiple blunders of the 15-year Liberal reign of error on hydro pricing, presided over by former premier Kathleen Wynne and her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty.
Of all the mistakes they made, their biggest was their financially reckless rush into green energy.
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But in the process, they signed outrageously expensive, 20-year contracts with wind, solar and bioenergy developers for unreliable energy that wasn’t needed to replace coal.
Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk reported in 2015 that the Liberals overpaid $9.2 billion for green energy because they ignored advice from their own experts that the extravagant contracts they were signing weren’t needed to meet the government’s environmental goals.
In fact, the Liberals actually replaced coal-fired electricity with non-emitting nuclear power and low-emitting natural gas.
Wind, solar and bioenergy ended up as multi-billion-dollar boondoggles that, as a report from the Fraser Institute released Tuesday said, continue to drive up the cost of electricity for residential and business consumers in Ontario, to among the highest levels in the country.
The Fraser report recommended the province cancel the contracts the previous Liberal government signed with green energy developers, in order to fulfill Premier Doug Ford’s election promise to lower residential hydro rates by 12% by the end of his first term of office.
It cited a legal opinion these contracts could be cancelled without financial penalty through properly-worded legislation.
But the Ford government would also have to consider the implications of breaking contracts agreed to by a previous provincial government, in terms of how it would impact on its ability to negotiate future contracts with the private sector.
That’s the legacy the previous Liberal government left us on the hydro file, one we’ll be paying for many years to come.
https://torontosun.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-were-still-paying-for-liberal-hydro-blunders