This article appeared in the Toronto Sun on Monday December 1, 2014
The Wynne government is toying with the idea of a Green Energy Act 2.0 in Ontario. As if the first one wasn’t bad enough.
Environment Minister Glen Murray hinted at a new carbon tax scheme and suggested a potential scenario of a four-degree-Celsius temperature increase over the next few decades, saying “that’s a legacy that’s pretty unthinkable for our children.”
It’s a bit ironic to hear this government talk about the legacy for future Ontarians, while at the same time, they ignore countless fiscal warnings and continue to plunge the province deeper in debt. Debt, of course, that will be an enormous burden on shoulders of the next generation of Ontarians.
If the Premier really wants to ensure prosperity and a good life in the future, she should avoid rabbit holes like the failed “cap-and-trade” emissions scheme, and learn from the economic mistakes of her government’s reckless Green Energy Act. Equally important, her government should stop spreading fear and misinformation to accomplish their green policy agenda.
For instance, Minister Murray’s estimate of the rate of climate change is severely exaggerated. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – an initiative of the United Nations – “for the next two decades, a warming of about 0.2 degree Celsius per decade is projected for a range of (various) emission scenarios.”
It is unclear how the Minister’s calculation was off by a multiple of ten, but broken calculators and bad math are something of a theme at Queen’s Park.
Similarly, in response to the question of whether Ontario would bring in a carbon tax; Premier Wynne said that her government is ready to “do everything in our power to guarantee that there is a world for our children in the future.”
This type of Chicken Little hysteria is not helpful to the debate.
The Wynne government should instead explain how this “cap-and-trade” scheme would do anything to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and examine the negative economic affects of imposing new taxes on energy producers.
Europe and California have both imposed the type of carbon market Ontario is flirting with, and the results should make Ontarians weary. The scheme sets an artificial price on carbon emissions, and sets an arbitrary standard of how much carbon emissions are acceptable. Bigger emitters buy carbon credits on a government auction, and those revenues are transferred to subsidize “green” businesses hand-selected by the government.
This faux-market scheme creates ripe opportunity for crony capitalism and corruption, while doing very little to address emissions.
Much like Ontario’s Green Energy Act, “cap-and-trade” schemes in both the U.S. and Europe have benefitted the rich and well-connected, while hurting everyday consumers and energy ratepayers.
The Green Energy Act has also led to skyrocketing costs of energy in Ontario, in part to pay for corporate subsidies and overly generous contracts. On top of this, Ontario ratepayers are on the hook for waste that occurs in renewable energy production. Since 80 per cent of electricity from wind power occurs during low-demand times (at night, for instance), and there is no way of storing this electricity, Ontario is forced to sell this electricity at a loss. According to the auditor general, Ontario has lost $2 billion on such exports.
Ontario taxpayers and electricity ratepayers should be incredibly skeptical of a new carbon tax or cap-and-trade scheme. We’ve seen this song and dance before. Once bitten, twice shy.
Candice Malcolm is the Ontario Director of the CTF
