Get-green-quick schemes

Leona Dombrowsky gets full marks for showing up. The Liberal candidate and incumbent for Prince Edward-Hastings surely knew there wouldn’t be many votes to be won when she attended a press conference in Milford last week called by the South Shore Conservancy. The naturalist group has been leading the opposition to the development of an industrial wind factory at Ostrander Point.

Similarly, Dombrowsky knew it would be a mostly unsympathetic crowd at a public forum on energy issues in Picton last evening—yet she gamely agreed to sit on a panel with other candidates.

Certainly she had the option to avoid both events—to use her time and energy with a friendlier group—but it says something about her strength and courage that Dombrowsky stared down her opposition.

She didn’t develop Dalton McGuinty’s energy policy—he did that, seemingly, all on his own. Dombrowsky has served in several cabinet positions but the closest she’s come to the energy file is the Ministry of Environment. (The fact that these two government ministries are now so closely interlinked is surely a bitter example of how the McGuinty government has perverted the safeguards established by his predecessors.)

Dombrowsky’s job was to defend this policy. She has done it gamely and dutifully.

But at the end of the day it is bad policy and Dombrowsky’s government must pay the price of squandering billions of dollars on Dalton McGuinty’s get-green-quick schemes.

The dream he sold to Ontario envisioned a future powered by free wind and solar energy. Less carbon would spew into the air and jobs would be created as this province became a leader in green technology.

Ontario residents are waking up from this dream with heavy heads. They have learned that, rather than free, wind and solar energy are really very, very expensive— as much as 15 times more expensive than conventional electricity sources. Hydro bills are rising sharply, forcing some to choose between electricity or heat. Or food.

They have learned wind and solar mean more carbon—not less—is cast into the air. Intermittent electricity generators, wind and solar, require backup power—typically gas—standing by at all times to step in when the wind doesn’t blow or sun doesn’t shine. Natural gas generating plants spew carbon. Much like your car, gas generating plants churn out more polluting exhaust as they cycle up and down, scrambling to match the variability of unpredictable generating sources.

Ontarians have learned sadly that the dream of green jobs was vapour. Most knew instinctively that jobs built on a foundation of government handouts weren’t real and couldn’t last.

Undeterred, McGuinty ploughed ahead handing out 20-year electricity supply contracts to numbered companies and speculators.

But, unsatisfied with the lack of enthusiasm by Ontario and Canadian companies for his lavish offerings, McGuinty rashly jumped into bed with a massive Korean-based conglomerate. The price in terms of dollars and access to Ontario markets has not yet been measured. Ontarians are coming to understand that Dalton McGuinty has sold his soul (and perhaps a chunk of this province’s energy self-sufficiency) for an illusory dream.

Soon the World Trade Organization will likely rule that McGuinty’s Buy Ontario provisions in the Green Energy Act contravene trade rules, and the remainder of the jobs from this failed policy will be sucked out of the province. Other jurisdictions will feast on our generosity.

Meanwhile, wind and solar manufacturers are learning the hard way that simply plugging an erratic generating source into Ontario’s 60- year-old grid couldn’t work.

Promised jobs haven’t materialized. Others will last only as long as the government handouts continue to flow.

Crushingly expensive electricity. Unreliable generation. Carbon spewing back up. Exported jobs. This is the legacy of Dalton McGuinty’s energy policy.

Leona Dombrowsky gets marks for loyalty and duty—but for the sake of Ontarians and her constituents, she should have spoken out against this foolish and dangerous meddling by her leader in a complex and critical file. For electricity is the backbone of Ontario. It is literally the lifeline that stitches our communities together and keeps the engine of our economy spinning.

It should not have been the plaything of a politician who thinks he knows best.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca