Liberals and hydro in Ontario.

[ZR]

Easy, it's where the bulk of those they've bought n paid for live....................again on our dime.

[RedSN]

Patrick Brown on Wynne's Hydro Plan
http://www.iheartradio.ca/newstalk-1...ning-1.1813037

Brings up some good points and some good ideas, but he completely fumbles the last question about what to do about the current hydro debt. It's like he's been under a rock for the last week and didn't understand the question.

[5.4MarkVIII]

The problem is there is nothing that can be done about the current hydro crisis. Pay billions in cancelation fees or laws suits to cancel contracts. The government and its taxpayers are on the hook for alot of money we don't have.
We need to save money and that means cuts. We all know how well talking about cutbacks went for the pc party last election.

[WTF]

True the power grid needed upgrading, and that blame can be shared across the board.
But don't try and pin the Green Energy Act on the PC's or the NDP. And there is a direct correlation between the recent prices soaring and the GEA.

nail on head

the GEA needs to be torn up and burned.....and it can be done

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/03/03...heme-contracts

We can save Ontario ratepayers billions of dollars by tearing up the green energy contracts that are playing a part in harming our economy, costing us manufacturing jobs and pushing people into poverty.

The political establishment and energy industry will say it can’t be done. Don’t listen to them. None of them have even tried and they don’t have your best interests in mind. Here’s how to get it done though:

Call up the companies the Liberals signed sweetheart deals with and tell them it’s not working anymore. Ontario has many contracts with companies large and small to pay them more than the going market rate for the renewable energy they produce. In some cases, we pay a staggering 40 times the rate.

They won’t be surprised to get our call. They’re probably expecting it and think we’re suckers for not trying to renegotiate sooner. Some will go along with it right away.

The deals many companies have with us right now are so generous that we can cut their rates by a lot and they’ll still walk away happy. The Liberals actually did just this back in 2012, cutting some contracts in half.

Others will say no though. And this is where the hardball begins: We tell them we’re tearing the contracts up.

If this brings them on board, then great. For the rest that call our bluff, turn the tables on them.

Hold a press conference to name and shame them. Physically tear up their contracts on television. Explain to the public that we gave these companies an out, that the ball was in their court, but instead they made the choice to become an enemy of the people.

After they see we aren’t joking, more will slink back and hammer out a deal. Others will posture that they want to go to court.

Good luck with that. While some of these companies have deep pockets — like Samsung, which has a multibillion-dollar deal with the province — and are up for a lengthy legal battle, many aren’t. They’ll settle. And maybe the big ones will too, as it’s the path of least resistance.

But it doesn’t even have to get to that point. This is because we can actually pass bills voiding contracts. Provinces have the power to do this, as Bruce Pardy, law professor at Queen’s University, wrote in 2014.

“If the Ontario Power Authority simply declared contracts under its Feed-In-Tariff to be terminated, the robust compensation clauses contained in those contracts would apply,” writes Pardy. “However, if instead the Ontario legislature passed a statue that explicitly denied the right to compensation, then no compensation would be payable.”

Now the biggest argument against going down this route is that it undermines the trust companies have in us as a contract partner. But this perspective will be isolated to the renewable energy sector, as our decision to tear up the deals will be based on factors specific to that industry.

So let me get this straight: If we tear up green energy contracts, the fallout will be that green energy companies will never want to enter into those sorts of contracts with us again? I fail to see the downside. Where’s the shredder? Let’s get started.

The opposition has been sheepish about playing hardball because they haven’t seen what’s in the contracts. But what they’ll likely find is there are indeed outs for us, they’re just ones the Liberals aren’t using.

It wouldn’t be the first time this has happened. This was the case with the billion-dollar gas plants scandal, as the 2013 auditor general’s report explains: “The premier’s office committed to compensating (TransCanada Energy) for the financial value of its contract for the Oakville plant, even though events occurred that we believe could have enabled termination of the contract at a much lower cost.”

Ontario’s famous billion-dollar boondoggle was a choice. If we’d gone to court, passed legislation or even just negotiated more aggressively, we likely would have come out hundreds of millions of dollars ahead. But they never even tried.

It’s time to stop treating deals that were problematic in the first place as more important than the livelihood of the people of Ontario.

I’ve heard from people in this province who, due to energy costs, are now using food banks, maxing out their credit cards and not heating their homes.

This is a scandal. It needs to be solved. And tearing up lousy contracts is a part of the solution.

[ZR]

Premier Kathleen Wynne was put on the hot seat Friday over her new hydro plan, not by reporters or opposition politicians, but by a ratepayer from Sturgeon Falls.
Wynne was making calls to people across the province who had written to her to complain about soaring electricity bills, a day after she announced an average 17-per-cent cut is coming this summer.
She made three of the calls with journalists in the room for a photo opportunity and while two of the people she called mostly thanked her for the announcement, a woman named Anita had some things to say.
Anita, who agreed to have reporters listen in on her call if her last name wasn't used, wanted to know why the 17-per-cent reduction is being achieved by spreading some costs over a longer period of time, akin to amortizing a mortgage over 30 years instead of 20, a move that will ultimately cost ratepayers billions of dollars in extra interest.
"That's like a mortgage on a house," she said. "With that extension I'll be paying my house five times."
Wynne said current ratepayers were footing the whole bill for investments that needed to be made to upgrade the electricity system, and since people in 15 or 20 years will still be making use of those assets, it's more fair to share the costs.
"It does mean it takes a bit longer to pay it off, it does mean it costs a bit more, but that's how mortgages work and there will be a benefit to those kids tomorrow, but you're ending up paying for too much of it today," Wynne said.
"OK," Anita said. But she wasn't done.
"What about those peak periods?" she said, saying time-of-use pricing wasn't helping people to lower their bills. "That's really a farce...People have done all they can, like washing at night and cleaning, whatever, turning down thermostats."
While time-of-use wasn't addressed in Thursday's announcement, Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault has said he is looking at changes to it as part of the province's new Long-Term Energy Plan, that he'll introduce this spring. He has said it doesn't make sense that a retired couple in Sudbury is on the same plan as a worker living in a Toronto condominium.
Anita's local utility is Greater Sudbury Hydro, but she wondered why the CEO of Hydro One is making $4 million at a time when people are struggling to pay their bills.
Wynne spoke about caps that her government is putting on executive compensation at broader public sector organizations — only, since Hydro One was partially privatized, it is not subject to those rules. The premier's office later said Wynne thought Anita was talking about Ontario Power Generation — which proposed a $3.8-million earnings cap for its CEO — and the premier would call her back to clarify.
Hydro One's corporate affairs executive vice-president said in an interview that they "understand and respect the question" about the CEO's salary.
"What's important to understand with executive compensation is this has now become a publicly traded company and the scale of this operation is $24 billion in assets, it's a $15-billion market cap company with $6 billion in revenue and growing," said Ferio Pugliese.
"What's important to know about executive compensation as well is that it's also anchored very much to performance, so I think what people are missing is that the CEO's compensation, 80 per cent of his compensation is tied to performance-based incentives, it's not just pure, base salary cash, he has to perform and deliver."
Hydro One CEO Mayo Schmidt earns a $850,000 base salary that could rise to a maximum of $4 million with bonuses.
Anita, who had Wynne on the phone for about 10 minutes, had some parting words of advice for the premier.
"One last thing: see that you get good advisers," she said. "Like, you say '(high hydro bills are) my mistake.' It's not only your mistake. You've got a team there working and some of those are really bad advisers."

[RedSN]

I heard that conversation with Anita. She seemed very intelligent and well grounded.

[5.4MarkVIII]

Too bad it falls on deaf ears.