OPINION
Parker Gallant: recent pet peeves
Recently a number of issues from ruminations of Premier Kathleen Wynne and her appointed Ministers have driven me to distraction. Couple those ruminations with the partial privatization of Hydro One and the promises to regulate it, as they have in the past, and it should make us all truly worried that the Ontario we grew up in is slowly sinking into the abyss!
I recently received a notice that the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) had reached their conclusions about regulating the OESP (Ontario Electricity Support Program), telling us that we will see our rates increase 0.11cents per kilowatt when the program is fired up on January 1, 2016. A report prepared by the OEB a year ago indicated 570,000 households (12% of electricity customers) in Ontario live in what is referred to as “energy poverty.”1. The OESP is seen by Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli as a way to deliver a social program to help those in that dilemma.
Normally a “social program” of this nature is delivered via the Ministry of Community and Social Services, but Minister Chiarelli has decided Ontario ratepayers should pick up the costs because Finance Minister Sousa is trying to reduce the provincial deficit. The OEB estimates the OESP will cost $158.4 million annually of which $13.4 million will represent “administrative costs.” In the scheme of things, $158.4 million means little, adding about $1.00 per month to the average (800 kilowatts per month) ratepayer bill, but that dollar will be “after-tax” and it is based on bureaucratic estimates which are generally low, or coloured to avoid advising us of the real cost.
Reflecting on the foregoing, the OEB just announced our rates went up $4.42 per month effective November 1st, 2015 and Minister Chiarelli told us the OCEB (Ontario Clean Energy Benefit) that reduced our bills by 10% would no longer apply effective January 1st. Couple that with the major issue he made about ending collection of the debt retirement charge (DRC) and how it would save us money, one would think our rates will finally go down!
Will they?
Read the entire article here: Parker’s Recent Pet Peeves (PRPP)
5 Comments
Karen Breitbach
Just imagine receiving this kind of news from your electricity supplier:
“Just in time for the holidays, the Bandera Electric Cooperative board of directors approved a cash rebate of $1.5 million to our active members. The cash rebates are a direct result of operational improvements and lower energy costs from BEC.
Members who have an active account on December 1 will qualify; the individual rebates will be based on the total amount of energy purchased by each member through September 2015. Anyone qualifying for a rebate more than $25 will receive a check, and members who qualify for a rebate less than $25 will see a credit on their December bill. ”
This co-op does not have a sunshine list. It purchases wherever at best prices and members share, vote, and participate in cost savings, or sometimes in higher costs, but know there are no bureaucrats or government agents dining at their unauthorized expense!
There is something rotten in Ontario’s whole system.
Pat Cusack
Is Mr Trudeau using Miz Wynnes math? Fed conservatives said we had a 2 billion surplus, fed liberals say a 3 billion shortfall, have we got a thief that makes Mr Duffy look like a piker or is everyone making up their own accounting rules. Matbe the RCMP should be involved in these accounting slight of hand practices.
Barbara
When Hydro One becomes majority private then it most likely will be a much leaner company.
Lower labour costs and early retirements the same as in other private companies.
Lynda
@Parker Gallant
“it should make us all truly worried that the Ontario we grew up in is slowly sinking into the abyss!”
Do you have any suggestions on what can be done by dissatisfied Ontarians?
We Canadians/Ontarians just keep bending over and letting the government have their way with us. Civil unrest is out of the question….isn’t it? We are too polite to even contemplate taking action….aren’t we? Even the few ‘marches’ on Parliament Hill and Queen’s Park are so dignified that the politicians could serve high tea to all who attended and the attendees would leave as happy campers thinking the government has looked after them. It’s time to stop moaning and groaning and make them listen to us. We used to have rights until the politicians started stealing them one by one. In my estimation, there aren’t any left! Margaret Thatcher said it best ‘Socialists are good at spending other peoples’ money’! Our standard of living is slowly going down the tubes, and what good is it to say we have great heathcare when there is no care in it? It’s time to find the ‘new world’.
J.P.
Where are the opposition parties?