Wizard of Ontario

It was crass and ugly political theatre. It could not have been more bald. Two days before the leaders’ debate in advance of the last Ontario election, three Liberal MPPs—Laurel Broten, Charles Sousa and Donna Cansfield—stood on a stage, their arms raised in triumph. All three were running in ridings around Mississauga amidst a debate about a gas-fired electricity generating facility rising out of the ground in the Sherway Gardens area. All three were thought to be at risk of losing their seat because of the plant. A year earlier neighbouring MPP Kevin Flynn had persuaded Dalton McGuinty his seat wasn’t safe unless the Premier killed a much larger gas-generating facility in Oakville. The Mississauga MPPs needed a similar favour. No matter the cost. Faced with losing power over his management of the energy file, McGuinty folded his convictions and opened up the taxpayers’ wallet to appease his desperate MPPs. Now the costs are beginning to be tallied.

Earlier this summer Finance Minister Dwight Duncan admitted that moving the Mississauga plant to Lambton near Sarnia would cost taxpayers at least $190 million. This week beleaguered Energy Minister Chris Bentley said his government would relocate the cancelled Oakville gas-fired generating plant to Lennox Generating Station at Bath—just across the bay from Cressy. The cost of the move: $40 million.

The total price tag for protecting those four Greater Toronto seats: $230 million. Not only do rural Ontarians get to shoulder a goodly share of this fiasco—they also get the gas plants and their emissions the GTA refused to take.

None of this makes sense other than through the lens of craven politics.

First, one of the important rules about generating electricity is to do it as close as possible to the folks who use it. This is because electricity leaks. The farther it has to travel to be consumed, the more it leaks from the grid. It can’t be helped when electricity is generated from dams in Northern Quebec, but such is the tradeoff for that form of inexpensive and emission-free electricity.

The market for the electricity to be generated at the new plant at Bath is the Greater Toronto Area. Same thing for the new Lambton plant. That is why these plants were planned—and in the case of the Mississauga plant, partly constructed—near Toronto; adjacent to the consumers who would use the power.

The fact is these newly relocated plants will have to run harder and spew emissions far longer simply to deliver the same amount of power to Toronto. Therefore the costs of this cowardly waste of taxpayer dollars only begins at $230 million—it rises with every electron generated thereafter.

There is another, perhaps more worrying aspect to be considered. Gas-fired electricity plants are the silent alter ego to wind and solar electricity generation. Because wind and solar are intermittent generating sources that cannot be switched on or off, let alone adjusted to meet fluctuating demand across the province. Gas plants work in the background, masking the variability and unpredictability of wind and solar.

Grid operators must ride them up and down all day long in this masquerade—serving the illusion that wind and solar are actually contributing meaningful amounts of electricity. Meanwhile the gas plants spit out far more emissions than if they were simply turned on and allowed to run at an even output.

What this means locally is that McGuinty and his government will have much more elbow room to pollute the eastern Lake Ontario shoreline with industrial wind turbines and solar farms so that he can boast to the world and GTA voters that he is green. Meanwhile, it will be the gas and oil-generating plant at Bath that actually keeps the lights on. It will be the rural residents downwind that will absorb the emissions.

The cost to this province of McGuinty’s mismanagement of the energy file, in terms of lost opportunity, the flight of manufacturers and processors as well as the enrichment of developers of industrial wind and solar, will eventually be measured in the tens, perhaps hundreds, of billions of dollars.

There was a time Ontario voters may have been fooled by McGuinty’s earnest and ambitious plans for this province’s energy needs. But surely his spineless moves to save seats in the GTA and push his political problems onto rural Ontario have revealed a profound weakness of character.

His ideas were always more puff than substance. More sound bite t han practical reality. More evangelism than science. Now that the veil has been pulled back—Ontarians must re-examine everything McGuinty has ever told them.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca