NAL Hudak on Energy
From the Office of Tim Hudak
QUEEN’S PARK– Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak led a special Legislative debate this March 22 on another of his ideas for kick-starting private sector job creation – The Affordable Energy and Restoration of Local Decision Making Act, 2012.
Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak joins anti-wind farm rally on lawns of Queen's Park last year.
“Affordable energy is a building block of a strong Ontario that meets the expectations of its people: Excellent education, dependable health care and world-beating infrastructure,” Hudak said. “But to be able to pay for these things, we need to get the basics right. And one of those basics is affordable energy.”
Hudak’s Bill would eliminate the FIT and microFIT programs, which pay subsidies of between double and 10 times the cost of other forms of energy to developers through 20 year contracts. It would restore local decision-making for the placement of large-scale wind and solar projects to what they were before the Green Energy Act. It would also require the Minister to consult communities on projects still under development and decide whether to proceed as-is, approve the project with conditions, or end it.
Hudak noted that Ontario was once one of the lowest-cost jurisdictions for energy anywhere in North America, but that today we are among the highest.
“Behind that rising cost is a McGuinty government policy that treats energy as a plaything for social engineers,” Hudak said, adding that Spain, Germany, Italy, Denmark and France have all learned this lesson and are scaling back or ending wind and solar subsidies altogether.
“FIT doles out the dollars whether Ontario needs the power or not,” Hudak said. “And the fact is, we don’t. This explains why we’ve been exporting surplus electricity to Quebec and New York for less than it costs Ontario ratepayers.” This has added up to a loss of nearly $2 billion since 2006 and in some cases has led to paying other jurisdictions to take the power off our hands, Hudak said.
“Further, report after report shows these programs cost between two and four jobs in the real economy for every job they create, and that up to 75 per cent of the jobs created artificially by this program would only be temporary.”
Hudak defied the Liberals to tout today’s two-year FIT review paring back wind and solar subsidies: “That’s as good as admitting you’ve wasted billions of tax dollars, so you’ll try wasting a couple of billion fewer instead and see if that works.
No, the answer, as contained in my Bill, is to cancel the FIT subsidy program altogether.”
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