Well, this is likely to help solve Ontario’s energy generation problems…
Ontario plans to introduce a three-year price subsidy on power rates for big industrial companies, the Globe said, quoting unidentified government and industry sources.
The move is aimed at helping steelmakers, pulp and paper mills and other manufacturers at a time when many companies blame soaring energy prices for plant closings and job cuts, the newspaper said.
[…]
[Energy Minister Donna] Cansfield said the revenue cap on Ontario Power Generation’s unregulated facilities will drop to 4.6 cents per kilowatt-hour from the present 4.7 cents. OPG is the province’s electricity generating utility.
The cap will go back up to 4.7 cents per kWh next year and be increased to 4.8 cents on April 1, 2008.
Hey, you slick-haired eastern Lieberals, here’s an idea to chew on:
LOWER THE TAXES.
I’m sure this is REALLY going to help the mills in N.W.O., along with closing coal fired generating stations in Atikokan and Thunder Bay.
And to think we used to call it (electricity) HYDRO!
You don’t know the half of it AJ.
I live in Thunder Bay. In the last month almost 10 000 people got laid off at three major pulp mills. Add that to the thousands put out of work by the softwood dispute, and you have a very big problem.
Small communities are in the process of ceasing to exist. Red Rock, for example, along with Dorion are likely to just disappear when NORAMPAC closes its pulp mill.
Here’s an even better idea for Ontari-ari-ario:
Ditch the Liberal stumblebums and bring back the Big Blue Machine.
The business of Ontario is – business.
Congrats Kate you finally managed to post something that ticked me off. We should be investing in new energy technologies not removing the incentive to innovate by subsidizing old ones.
Cutting supply by closing nuclear plants, while lowering prices to increase demand. Adam Smith should be throwing up in his grave right about now.
If Mr. McGuinty is re-elected, the last Ontarian to leave will have no trouble turning out the lights.
10.000 people laid off in the Thunder Bay area from pulp mills alone? is this a typo?
if it isn’t, and pulp is such a good industry, maybe they’d like to take their severance pay and buy out the pulp mill in Prince Albert, Sask…? somebody I know has already contributed more than $800.000.000 to it…
I imagine it’s beautiful inside.
if it is a typo, maybe the Liberals should do what any self respecting lefty does, and just outlaw lay-off notices for these few thousands and crank up the “ministry of bailouts”
….plenty of work in Fort McMurry for skilled people.
What a maroon!!
I wanted to say something much more intelligent but thats all that came out.
what a moron?
or was your intention, a “maroon” colored moron?
or do you mean I am similar to a chocolate coconut candy?
not that my spelling or syntax is 100% either.
the government of saskatchewan, has many millions invested in PA pulp, they haven’t the spine to either let the industry go, or to admit that high taxes are a huge problem.
if the ministry of bailouts in Ontario thinks that low electrical rates are all that are required, that’s a problem.
if electrical rates are kept artificially low, who will invest and build new capacity for the electrical system?
the taxpayers.
marc58510: “what a maroon” is a comment Mel Blanc, as Bugs Bunny, used to describe Yosemite Sam. What artemis means, I don’t know.
Artemis, please excuse my crass commentary today.
I just think it shouldn’t cost so much to sort out the problems of government trying to be all things to all people.
When I grew up as a kid in Ontario I was led to believe that Niagra Falls supplied all the power anyone could ever want in that province. After all why was the power company called Ontario Hydro anyway?
But when you look at it Ontario has no coal, no natural gas and no more rivers to dam up.
You can blame their problems today squarely on Maurice Strong back in Bob Rae’s days and a province that continues to refuse to price its power correctly.
How Toronto.
They have subsidized the price of electricity by refusing to take into account the true cost of building and operating power plants. It is much easier to issue thirty year bonds and make it some future governments problem. Well, I see it is more of the same still.
I challenged Tom Adams of Energy Probe one time to offer up one form of electricity in Ontario that he and his enviro Nazi’s could actually agree with and he muttered something about combine cycle natural gas generation. Ata boy Tom, checked the price of natural gas lately?
Maurice Strong shit canned the construction of another dozen nuclear reactors in the province decades ago and it has been amuzing to see people try to blame the situation on the Mike Harris gov’t who obviously came after the fact. It is only when Ontario is truly willing to live up to the true cost of electricity that they will find salvation from the politicians.
And you’d be pleased to know Kate that the coal to run the Atikokan plant came from Saskatchewan as does 95% of the uranium to run the nukes.
Get out of line just once you Ontario jokers and we’ll have you cutting down what little is left of your forests to keep warm in no time.
So I was wondering about something. If the steelmakers, pulp and paper mills and other manufacturers in Ontario and Quebec and across the country are struggling and need subsidies … and farmers are struggling and need subsidies … and natural resource developments like Hibernia oil, and tar sands, and diamond mines and who knows what other kinds of mines need subsidies … and banks need protection … and media companies need subsidies and protection … and forestry companies and sawmills need subsidies … and fishermen need subsidies … and homebuilders and homebuyers need subsidies in the form of low interest rates … and renters need protection from high rents … and parents need subsidies to have children … and old people and the poor and students and the unemployed and the uneducated and the immigrants need subsidies to buy everything … and if all of these various protection and subsidy schemes need thousands and thousands of government workers to manage … and the taxation scheme in order to collect all of the money also needs many thousands of workers … and if all these government workers for some reason need to be paid far more than practically anyone else anywhere in the country …
Somebody please tell me, because I’m dying to know: which industry in Canada actually doesn’t need subsidies and protection and thousands of government babysitters, and is so full of cash and busting with profits that it’s going to pay the freight for everyone else? A couple of oil fields in Alberta, and a few gas fields in BC, Alta and Sask? Is that it? Is there a single other industry, region or group of people in Canada who are so wealthy that they can pull the entire train along, for the next few decades? Wealthy, and also extremely passive and happy to get milked by their government? What industry is that, and who are these people?
I’m dying to know, because if this whole, brain-dead, stupid, socialist boondoggle that we call “Canada” is only being held up by a temporary boom in oil and gas prices, plus an unprecedented explosion in fake wealth created by an extremely loose money supply created by the Bank of Canada, then there’s sure going to be a hell of a cold shower when people wake up and realize that nobody is working in a profitable industry anymore, and everybody is sitting around with their hand out, bawling, “Where’s mine?”
Canada is starting to smell very, very … Venezuelan.
When a corporate welfare policy crashes a utility the first time, it is Liberal dylexic logic that it will work on a second try….you just have to wish harder and all your dreams will come ture.
http://www.energyshop.com/es/homes/ele/ele-prices.cfm
Here’s the going price of deregulated (residential) electricity at the moment in my area of Ontario. I almost signed on last weekend but after thinking about the up coming “smart” meters, and all the potential FUBARS.I think I’ll wait till all the dominoes fall.
We are in for a big hit sooner or later here in Ontario, and I don’t think people really see it coming.
The only conciliation will be watching McGinty squirm, and people kicking themselves for voting the numbskull in.
Deregulated Electricity Supply Rates
Supplier 1 yr. fixed 5 yr. fixed Features Click Below to Sign Up
Bullfrog Power 8.3 — Customer required to assign all rebates to Bullfrog – Green Power —
Canadian Hydro — 8.99 — Sign-up Online
Direct Energy Essential Home Services-Elec — 9.29
9.99 Brown Power -9.29�
Green Power -9.99�/ —
Ontario Energy Savings Corp. — 9.89 —
Universal Energy — 9.59 10% discount till April 30/06
You’ll notice also that green power of course costs more.
You have to understand the theory of McGintanomics. First, shut down plants to decrease electricity supply, then subsidize the price to increase demand.
Then blame Mike Harris and buy electricity from somebody else at a higher rate than you can sell it for.
Then vote yourself a pension increase to go with the wage increase and go on vacation.
Justzumqai “Somebody please tell me, because I’m dying to know: which industry in Canada actually doesn’t need subsidies and protection and thousands of government babysitters”
Bay Street partly, but there’s probably a few bits of corporate welfare in there too.
To all. Probably a dead thread but I did not mean at any or all of the posters were maroons.
Rather the maroon (because it truly is cartoon imbecility) is the current Ont. Govt. and has been pointed out, previous governments that have royally screwed up power in Ontario, and then are pursuing even more idiotic policies to screw it up even more.
Ultimately as most socialist regimes have found out, the laws of economics will assert themselves. You can’t sell power more cheaply than it takes to produce it.
All these “subsidies” do is delay the day of reckoning and add to the horrible debt that Ontario is carrying. Its like a family paying for operating expenses on the Visa card, and when one is maxed out, pay for that with Master Card.
Maroons indeed.
We need subsidization because we do not practice reciprocal trade in that we allow unfettered access to our markets of products from places like China and Korea while they manipulate currencies and block access to our products.
In short, you need to ensure reciprocal and fair trade agreements at which point subsidies become moot. However, as long as you allow one-way trade (and the United States allows one-way trade from non-NAFTA partners), our industries are forced to compete with other nation’s industries that are in effect, cheating.
Hmmmm…now I get it…a pattern is developing…
Offer subsidized power to Ontario industries so that they can overcome the challenges of market forces. Great for pulp mills, apparently (let’s not worry about the fact that the pulp market has plummeted).
Plow $800 million of taxpayers’ money into a failing pulp mill in Saskatchewan in order to protect 170, repeat 170 jobs.
Pour $450 million of taxpayers’ money into the Skeena Cellulose mill in BC to protect a few hundred jobs, and turn around and sell it for $5 million (at which point the new owners begin to request more subsidies in order to keep the mill open).
Spend $485 million of BC taxpayers’ money to build three “fast-cat” ferries which don’t work, and then sell the three of them (two being virtually unused)for $18 million (less auction fees of $5 million). Coincidentally, the folks that were paid to construct these pigs are now the new owners; same people who offered to buy them back for $280 million when the NDP were still in power.
Apparently, capitalism only exists for people like me, running unsubsidized businesses which pay the taxes to support the businesses that are failures…
I’ll bet that the very last livery stable in downtown Vancouver or Toronto were damn fine establishments, but they disappeared because the market changed. Had the current gevernment policies existed back then, we’d probably still see the odd pile of hoseshit in the streets…