Ontario’s energy minister cited a climate change denial blog in the legislature Tuesday when asked about the $231 million cost of cancelling renewable energy contracts, saying later it’s just one of many information sources he checks when preparing for question period.
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the Ford government has earmarked $231 million to cancel numerous green energy contracts approved by the former Wynne Liberals, NDP leader Andrea Horwath asked Energy, Mines, Northern Development and Indigenous Affairs Minister Greg Rickford to disclose more information about how the government arrived at the $231 million figure.
Rickford replied in part that Ontario’s high electricity costs are caused by the subsidized rates given to green energy producers to encourage their proliferation.
He then cited arecent post about Germany’s use of wind energy in a blog expressly designed to encourage people to question the theory of man-made climate change.
“I looked through periodicals and here I came across the Climate Change Dispatch and quote yesterday; ‘power grid operators have been struggling to keep the grid stable due to erratic feed in of subsidized wind energy causing German electricity prices to become amongst some of the most expensive worldwide,’ Mr. Speaker,” Rickford said.
Climate Change Dispatch says it “does not believe in consensus science” and its mission is to fight the “garbage science” of climate change caused by carbon dioxide emissions, something nearly universally understood amongst scientists who study the issue.
Its last three posts published Nov. 26 are entitled “Why Apocalyptic Claims About Climate Change are Wrong,” “98 per cent of Air Passengers Won’t Buy Carbon Offsets to Fight Climate Change,” and “Best Monsoon In 25 Years Quells Climate Fears Among Indian Farmers.”
“We are past the point of debating whether climate change exists. Ontarians know climate change is real, and caused by human action. Does this government know that,” NDP environment critic Peter Tabuns said in a statement issued Tuesday afternoon.
Speaking later, Rickford said he reads a variety of sources of information.
“We do a scan of periodicals and magazines all of the time, and in this case we found a suitable quote about a situation that’s going on in Germany right now and I thought it was appropriate to do that,” Rickford said. “I am not going to defend or explain how I put my answers in Question Period together but for myself I thought it was entirely appropriate. It was remarkably similar to the situation that we have . . . for the benefit of the people of Ontario.”
The government says the $231 million worth of cancellation fees is expected to save ratepayers $790 million.
But industry representatives dispute that figure.
For her part, Ontario's Auditor General called the $231 million figure "reasonable."
Tuesday’s exchange at Queen’s Park comes as seven young people filed a lawsuit against the Ontario government, saying its weakened carbon emission reduction targets constitute a breach of young Ontarian’s Charter rights to life, liberty and security of the person