[Cobra]

Nope, hydro costs will sink them

Electricity prices to soar after four years, says secret Liberal cabinet document
https://www.thestar.com/news/queens...ars-says-secret-liberal-cabinet-document.html

The average Ontario hydro bill will jump almost $10 a month in 2022 and soar to $195 by 2027 under the Liberal government’s hydro plan, according to a leaked cabinet document obtained by the Progressive Conservatives.

 

[narduch]

Nope, hydro costs will sink them

Electricity prices to soar after four years, says secret Liberal cabinet document
https://www.thestar.com/news/queens...ars-says-secret-liberal-cabinet-document.html

The average Ontario hydro bill will jump almost $10 a month in 2022 and soar to $195 by 2027 under the Liberal government’s hydro plan, according to a leaked cabinet document obtained by the Progressive Conservatives.

Nice find.

So they basically lowered the rates in order to get elected, but then its back to the usual.

 

[christiesplits]

I wonder if the Wynne Liberals can learn any lessons from the BC Liberal win? Both scored very low approval ratings, yet the BC Libs miraculously formed government.

 

[SJD_Toronto]

Nope, hydro costs will sink them

Electricity prices to soar after four years, says secret Liberal cabinet document
https://www.thestar.com/news/queens...ars-says-secret-liberal-cabinet-document.html

The average Ontario hydro bill will jump almost $10 a month in 2022 and soar to $195 by 2027 under the Liberal government’s hydro plan, according to a leaked cabinet document obtained by the Progressive Conservatives.

Oh, joy. I wonder how that clueless, sob story Glenn Thibeault and Wynne will spin this. It's so clear this so called fair hydro plan is to just help the Grits win back government next year. No doubt that the Tories and NDP are going to hit Wynne HARD with this pretty big news.

 

[Cobra]

Lol...I don't see how the Liberals will explain this to voters

Ontario Liberals roll out legislation to lower hydro bills for 10 years — but consumers will still pay for it later
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/c...ars-but-consumers-will-still-pay-for-it-later

For the next 10 years, a new entity overseen by Ontario Power Generation will pay that difference and take on debt to do so.

Then, the cost of paying back that debt — which the government says will be up to $28 billion — will go back onto ratepayers’ bills for the next 20 years as a “Clean Energy Adjustment.”

 

[salsa]

Lol...I don't see how the Liberals will explain this to voters

Ontario Liberals roll out legislation to lower hydro bills for 10 years — but consumers will still pay for it later
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/c...ars-but-consumers-will-still-pay-for-it-later

For the next 10 years, a new entity overseen by Ontario Power Generation will pay that difference and take on debt to do so.

Then, the cost of paying back that debt — which the government says will be up to $28 billion — will go back onto ratepayers’ bills for the next 20 years as a “Clean Energy Adjustment.”

The Liberals have less than zero credibility on this file. Anyone who believes otherwise is naive.

 

[jje1000]

Some more bad news:

Ontario, Alberta spur Canada’s record-low wage growth

Across the spectrum of white-collar jobs in Ontario, there was a decline in earnings among managers and professionals in health, law and natural and applied sciences. Senior managers for example, were paid, on average, $53.54 an hour in April compared with $58.29 a year ago.

It is not just white-collar occupations, factory workers also experienced a pay cut. And other industries that were once responsible for boosting the province’s hourly average saw flat wage growth. Those included education and finance.

“That is the most disconcerting part of the jobs report. It looks like Ontario is a driving force behind that,” said Beata Caranci, chief economist with Toronto-Dominion Bank. “Across all industries, even ones that are seeing job growth … they are broadly seeing weakness in wages.”

Since last November, earnings growth in the country’s most populous province has remained below 1 per cent. Last month, the average hourly rate increased 0.23 per cent to $26.43 over April of the previous year.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...5-per-cent-lowest-since-2008/article34905456/



Plus an op-ed (though some sources are from the dubious Fraser Institute):

Matthew Lau: Here’s the truth about Ontario’s dismal economic performance that Wynne’s Liberals hope you don’t notice

If Liberal central planning is the recipe for prosperity, perhaps Wynne should explain why inflation-adjusted GDP per capita growth in Ontario from when the Liberals were elected in 2003 to 2015 was a paltry 6.9 per cent (or 0.56 per cent a year, on average). That’s barely half the rate of growth of 13.0 per cent that was seen in the rest of Canada.

Over the same 12 years of Liberal rule, household disposable income growth was by far lower in Ontario, at a mere 13.1 per cent after accounting for changes in the CPI and population, than in any other province. Manitoba (24.4 per cent), Saskatchewan (42.7 per cent), Alberta (31.9 per cent), and British Columbia (34.2 per cent) all did far better; and even neighbouring Quebec (16.4 per cent) outperformed Ontario by a wide margin.

What about jobs? Charles Sousa insisted in his budget speech that his government’s “priority is all about jobs, created by thriving businesses.” By this measure too, the Ontario Liberals have been a miserable failure. Every year since 2008, Ontario’s employment rate has been below the national average, a trend that continued through the first three months of 2017.

The picture is particularly bad for youth. Every year since 2002, Ontario’s youth employment rate has been below the national average, often by a significant margin. In March 2017, youth employment in Ontario fell to 51.6 per cent, more than four percentage points below the national average.

Nor was the employment growth that did take place in Ontario fuelled by “thriving businesses.” Private sector employment in Ontario has grown a measly 8.4 per cent since 2003. That’s slightly less than half the rate of private sector employment growth in the rest of Canada. Meanwhile employment in Ontario’s public sector expanded by 23.9 per cent.

Just as businesses are slow to hire, business investment in Ontario has also lagged. Philip Cross, formerly the chief economic analyst at Statistics Canada, noted in a 2015 study that business investment “is no longer the driving force of capital formation in Ontario. In its place, investment by the public sector in Ontario has nearly doubled …” (The title of Cross’s scathing analysis, published by the Fraser Institute, is aptly named “Ontario – No Longer a Place to Prosper.”)

But at least the budget has finally been balanced, after nine consecutive deficits, right? After all, Sousa proclaimed that the “government promised to balance the budget… I am proud to announce… We did it!” Not quite. As Rosalie Wyonch of the C.D. Howe Institute noted, the balanced budget projections “rest on doubtful pension accounting and extra-buoyant tax revenue, against a backdrop of a rising debt-service burden and accelerating program spending.”

http://business.financialpost.com/f...nce-that-wynnes-liberals-hope-you-dont-notice

 

[Amare]

So the truth has finally been exposed: Kathleen and Glenn made the issue of electricity costs even worse than they were before the spotlight was put on this issue. How one manages to accomplish that feat is beyond me.

This tells people everything they need to know about Wynne and why her approval rating is so dismal. This government, time and time again, receives warnings that whatever X plan they are about to implement is not a good idea and they shouldnt do it. They turn around and do the exact opposite of what the everyone says they should do.

 

[BurlOak]

The Liberals have less than zero credibility on this file. Anyone who believes otherwise is naive.

However, the exact same people and philosophies were elected federally 18 months ago. So maybe there are a lot of naive people out there.

 

[Amare]

However, the exact same people and philosophies were elected federally 18 months ago. So maybe there are a lot of naive people out there.

This is a different ballgame here. The Ontario liberals have proven to be outright incompetent to the point their base doesn't even support them anymore on a very large number of policies, the federal Liberals havent been blatantly ignoring their base and giving them the blind eye.

 

[Cobra]

How your hydro bill will rise over the next decade
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-hydro-bills-projections-cabinet-document-1.4110539

A picture is worth a thousand words

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Is that inflation adjusted?

 

[torontologist]

It's been said a thousand times, and I'm not sure why I'm pointing this out again, but Ontario hydro rates will still be lower than average for comparable jurisdictions (NY, MA..... UK, if you consider that comparable). People here aren't used to it, but it is certainly not evidence of incompetency or corruption.

 

[jje1000]

It's been said a thousand times, and I'm not sure why I'm pointing this out again, but Ontario hydro rates will still be lower than average for comparable jurisdictions (NY, MA..... UK, if you consider that comparable). People here aren't used to it, but it is certainly not evidence of incompetency or corruption.

But you can't forget that the rises in costs are not due entirely due to Green policies- a lot of the costs are also due to Liberal mismanagement- simply put, our hydro fees don't need to be as high as they needed to be if the energy contracts negotiated weren't as high as they are.

Incompetence:

Ontarians paid $37 billion extra for electricity from 2006-14, says auditor general Bonnie Lysyk

Ontario’s electricity consumers are being zapped for tens of billions of dollars due to overpriced green energy, poor government planning, and shoddy service from Hydro One, says auditor general Bonnie Lysyk.

In her annual report, she concluded ratepayers forked out $37 billion more than necessary from 2006 to 2014 and will spend an additional $133 billion by 2032 due to global adjustment electricity fees on hydro bills.

https://www.thestar.com/news/queens...-for-hydro-one-decisions-auditor-general.html

Also, we aren't Massachusetts, NY (or the U.K.)- Ontario is competiting more with Midwestern states like Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, and in Canada against Quebec. Their energy rates are far lower than ours.

You're right that people aren't used to it- costs ballooning by over hundreds of times are eating up people's incomes especially in a time of low pay increases in the province. Businesses aren't investing as much as they can because of issues like hydro costs. Maybe that's why Wynne is polling in the tens and the Liberals are in a frantic vote-buying exercise at the moment.

 

[ttk77]

It's been said a thousand times, and I'm not sure why I'm pointing this out again, but Ontario hydro rates will still be lower than average for comparable jurisdictions (NY, MA..... UK, if you consider that comparable). People here aren't used to it, but it is certainly not evidence of incompetency or corruption.

Do those other jurisdictions also split out the cost of the electricity from the cost of the transmission like they do here though? The hydro rates are only part of the story.