News last week of more problems with Hydro One’s smart meters — 36,000 of them in rural areas can’t transmit data because of poor Wi-Fi connections — set me to thinking.
How did we get into the mess Ontario’s electricity file has become under Ontario’s Liberal government, first under Dalton McGuinty and then Premier Kathleen Wynne?
To be fair, Ontario’s hydro system was in need of major repairs when the Liberals won power in 2003. Hydro rates were going up no matter who won that election.
Also, to their credit, the Liberals ended Ontario’s use of polluting coal-fired electricity generation, albeit seven years later than the 2007 deadline McGuinty promised in 2003.
However, they did this not with wind and solar power, as they imply, but with conventional nuclear power and natural gas.
Indeed it was their ideological blunder into so-called “green” energy, mainly wind but also solar and biomass, that put hydro rate increases on steroids
This to the point where the electricity portion of the hydro bills of residential consumers and small businesses increased 80% from 2004 to 2014, according to Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk, with no end in sight. (more...)
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