More hydro news that will cost you $$$ and make your blood boil.

[ZR]

Ontarians are in for a hydro shock.
An internal cabinet document leaked to the Progressive Conservatives shows that electricity rates in the province will remain stable in the lead up to the 2018 election, and then spike in 2022.
The document, which breaks down the Liberal government’s recently announced plan to slash hydro rates by 25%, shows that prices will begin to rise for the average homeowner following this year. The government plans to limit rate increases to 2% a year, but then prices will jump in 2022 when the cap expires.
The Tories say the document was presented to cabinet in March and that they obtained it from a “whistleblower.”
It says that between 2022 and 2027, Ontario residents will be zapped by a 6.5% jump annually, each year. That will be followed by a whopping 10.5% increase in 2028.
When all those hikes are applied, the average monthly hydro bill in Toronto will leap from $142 to $215.
In March, Premier Kathleen Wynne announced a plan to cut hydro rates by 17% after months of outrage over increasing electricity costs. The cut amounts to 25% if a previous 8% HST rebate is included.
But the cost of the rate cut is an estimated $25 billion in interest payments over the next 30 years as the government had to reorganize the system’s debt in order to make the reduction possible.
Liberal Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault unveiled the legislation that enables the hydro cut Thursday, giving the legislature eight days to debate and pass the bill before Queen’s Park begins its summer break.
Initially, Thibeault said he couldn’t confirm the document or verify its numbers.
“I’ve been in this position for 11 months,” Thibeault said. “I’ve seen literally thousands of graphs. So for any confidential document, I can’t verify it.”
Thibeault stressed government has received figures for months on their hydro plan which included “thousands of documents” and “hundreds of briefings.” But he did dispute the accuracy of the 10.5% in 2028.
Asked if documents presented to cabinet are often false, the minister said typically reports are presented as “topics for discussion.”
But later Thursday afternoon, Thibeault released a statement saying the documents obtained by the Tories were only a draft.
“Patrick Brown and the PCs have instead decided to share an outdated document with data that is months old, as they try to distract from the fact that they have offered no credible ideas for hydro rate relief,” Thibeault said in the statement. “We have been working on this plan for months, and as we worked on it, the documents and calculations evolved, meaning that numbers shared by the PCs today are completely inaccurate.”
'DESPERATE GOVERNMENT'
It’s no coincidence that secret Liberal documents show hydro rates will skyrocket after next summer’s provincial election, says the Progressive Conservative energy critic.
MPP Todd Smith slammed the government’s plan to slash hydro rates by borrowing billions, saying documents leaked to the Tories by a “whistleblower” show the true cost of the scheme.
He called the reduction plan a “desperate” ploy ahead of the key 2018 vote.
“They are simply borrowing to get them through the next election and (are) not dealing with the underlying reason why our electricity prices are as high as they are,” he said.
“This is a desperate government. This is a desperate issue for this government. They’ve created legislation that we’re only getting a few days to look at.”
Smith also said the documents suggest the government plans to resurrect the much-hated debt retirement charge. That fee, which was recently curtailed by the government, added about $4 to $5 on the average bill.
But the new Clean Energy Adjustment, which will be placed on bills in the late 2020s to help pay down the debt created by the Liberal’s rate cut, will be like the retirement charge “on steroids,” Smith insisted.
Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault denied people will once again have to pay a debt retirement charge.
NDP energy critic Peter Tabuns said he believes the cabinet document is legitimate and it points out what his party has been saying all along: The Liberal plan doesn’t address the hydro problem.
“It just means that the Liberals allow all of the things that are driving higher prices to continue to be there,” he said. “They’re able to suppress the price for awhile. They piled enough money on top of it that they can make it look good for a bit. But it’s all going to burst out again.”

[ZR]

Confidential cabinet documents on Ontario electricity rates drafted for Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government and released by the Progressive Conservatives Thursday reveal that the Liberals’ so-called “Fair Hydro Plan” is a farce and a mirage.
They demonstrate that there is no free lunch when it comes to electricity prices, no matter how the Liberals try to spin it.
Simply put, when you take on $25 billion in new debt to give hydro consumers an average 25% reduction on their electricity bills today, it means you’re going to hit them with even higher bills tomorrow.
Especially since the Liberals also say they will limit annual hydro rate increases to no more than inflation for the next four years, meaning rates will explode once this artificial lid comes off.
That’s assuming the entire plan isn’t another one of Wynne’s “stretch goals” (see auto insurance) that she will abandon if she wins next year’s election.
To be fair, hydro rates were going up no matter who won the 2003 election which brought the Liberals to power, because previous governments of all stripes had neglected the system.
But they didn’t have to skyrocket as they did under the Liberals.
That was due in large part to their reckless blunder into expensive and unreliable green energy, chiefly wind and solar power, which wasn’t needed to replace coal-fired electricity, the main justification the Liberals gave for skyrocketing hydro rates.
(The Liberals actually replaced coal with nuclear power and natural gas.)
In 2011, then auditor general Jim McCarter predicted that according to the Liberals’ own numbers, electricity rates would rise an average of 7.9% annually from 2010-2015 with 56% of that due to renewable energy.
Electricity, McCarter warned, would cost consumers $4.4 billion more than necessary over 20 years, because the Liberals failed to follow the advice of their own experts by offering overly generous, 20-year contracts to wind and solar developers.
By 2015, McCarter’s successor, Bonnie Lysyk, estimated the bill had soared to $9.2 billion, with the Liberals paying twice the average cost for wind power and 3.5 times the cost for solar power, compared to the U.S.
The Liberals paid almost $2 billion for smart meters, double the original price tag.
They cancelled two unpopular gas plants before the 2011 election (needed, in part, to back up wind power) at a cost of up to $1.1 billion over 20 years, according to the auditor general, 378% higher than the Liberals’ estimated cost of $230 million.
Because their policies created an energy surplus — as many manufacturing companies closed due in part to high electricity prices — the Liberals had to pay renewable energy developers not to produce electricity, since they were contractually obligated to buy their power first, or sell it at a loss to the U.S.
While the Liberals made blunder after blunder, the costs went up and up.
In 2013, they predicted residential electricity prices would rise 42% by 2018.
In the decade between 2006 and 2016 prices doubled, making Ontario’s electricity the most expensive in Canada, according to Hydro Quebec’s annual survey of major North American cities.
With their so-called Fair Hydro Plan, the Liberals aren’t solving the mess they’ve made of electricity rates.
They’re kicking it down the road and making it worse.

[Scrape]

oh damn. Wynn!!!!!! I was going to share the same thing too since I know you love her so much!

http://z1035.com/leaked-cabinet-documents-say-hydro-rates-will-go-way-4-years/

[Spock]

Next thing you know she's(IT) is going to give away money for free to get votes!

[ZR]

Isn't she already?

[bbriann]

Have to pay for the "Free" wind and solar green electricity.
Wait till all those windmills need rebuilt....
Wind 14 cents
Solar 48 cents
Gas 16 cents
Nuclear 7 cents
Hydro 6 cents

[Ray721]

Nuclear would be even cheaper if they would consult guys that have been in the trades for a couple decades when planning jobs. Some of the shit they plan/do doesn't make any sense and is just wasteful. Doing the same job time and again due to poor planning is very frustrating.

[WTF]

2018 will be a good year if the fucking mindless sheep in this province wake the hell up and literally decimate the OLP in the upcoming election.....their record shouldn't even get them one damn seat

let the PCs come in and clean up this fucking mess

1) enact legislation that allows the province to kill all these fucking green-energy contracts without penalty
2) kill the fucking contracts
3) start paying down this fucking debt that costs us $1 Billion every month in interest payments
4) tell all these activists and social-engineering wannabees to go suck a dick and find a real job

[ZR]

WTF for Premier.

[5.4MarkVIII]

I'd vote for that!

[ZR]

There are structural problems in the electricity system that the Wynne Liberals created, and if I become Premier, I am committed to getting it right.
I will fix one of the most egregious problems they created: allowing their party insiders to get rich. Donations from energy companies to the Liberal Party amount to $1.3 million. Kathleen Wynne remains so beholden to these insiders that the system remains tainted and broken.
This should never have happened.
Every time you pay your bill, you pay more and Wynne Liberal friends get richer.
And while this has been obvious for a long time, the Wynne Liberals won’t stop signing new bad energy contracts. In fact, they are about to sign hundreds of new sweetheart green energy contracts by the end of the summer.
It’s a waste of money, and doesn’t benefit families.
As premier I would stop the signing of any new contracts.
The Wynne Liberals are approving new energy that will amount to powering up 25,000 homes per year. This is, quite simply, power that Ontario doesn’t need. In our existing supply we already have enough.
In fact, we have more than enough. We waste a billion dollars a year by producing energy that we sell for a loss, or simply give away. This is wasted electricity that amounts to powering 786,000 homes.
And to add insult to injury, we don’t even use much of the green energy Ontario already has: hydroelectric. We’re spilling water at Niagara Falls at the same time we are signing more bad contracts under the Green Energy Act. Or as I like to call it, the Bad Contracts Act.
They are bad contracts not just because we don’t need the power but because the Liberals signed them with their donors and friends. Thousands of green energy contracts were awarded to companies that have together donated $1.3 million to the Liberals.
And we now know that the Wynne Liberals will pay for these expensive contracts by raising your hydro rates the moment they have the chance.
That’s because when they made a big splash saying they were going to “fix” their hydro mess, all they really did was punt the problem down the road. Their cynical “fix” will just lower your energy bills until the election is over.
They’re using your money for their re-election campaign, hoping you’ll forget about their legacy of scandal and waste in the electricity system.
Ontario once had some of the most competitive electricity rates in North America. After 14 years of Liberal rule, we have some of the highest and fastest rising hydro rates. Since the Liberals came into power, the hydro bill of the average family has increased by more than $1,000 a year.
Quite simply, life is harder under the Wynne Liberals.
This has to change. Life’s already too unaffordable. Ontario families and businesses cannot afford higher hydro rates.
I already announced that I will rein in exorbitant executive compensation in the energy sector. I’ve also announced an Ontario PC government will put a stop to Kathleen Wynne’s path of destruction by dismantling the Green Energy Act.
Today I am pledging we will put an immediate freeze on any new energy contracts that force Ontario families to pay for hydro they don’t need.
This means no new sweetheart deals for wind or solar insiders. No exceptions. Workers, families and businesses come first. Any savings will be used to provide much needed hydro relief.
The next election will be about who will make it easier for you and your family to make ends meet and get ahead.
It’s time for an energy policy that does not put secret deals for Liberal insiders first. It’s time for a change that makes life more affordable for Ontario families.
That’s what change for the better looks like.
- Patrick Brown is the Ontario PC Leader

[ZR]

From cp24


When it comes to carbon pricing and greenhouse gas reduction schemes, Canada has seen the future and it’s in Ontario.
Problem is, it’s a mess.
After boasting for years about closing the last of Ontario’s coal-fired electricity plants in 2014, Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government is now a not-so proud co-owner of one of the largest coal-fired electricity plants in the United States.
This after it sold control of Hydro One, the province’s electricity transmitter, to the private sector for a quick fix of money to fulfill Wynne’s 2014 election promise to balance Ontario’s cash-strapped books in 2017-18.
Meanwhile, 340 workers at a Siemens Canada wind turbine blade manufacturing plant in Tillsonburg, Ont., just lost their jobs.
The plant was one of four set up under the province’s ill-advised and since dramatically downsized multi-billion dollar green energy deal with South Korea’s Samsung corporation.
A series of highly critical reports from the province’s Auditor General on the government’s green energy program have led many beleaguered taxpayers to conclude wind turbines and solar panels don’t run on wind and the sun so much as on public subsidies, and only for as long as the subsidies last.
Wynne’s cap-and-trade carbon pricing scheme, which started Jan. 1 and which she made no mention of imposing in the last election, will be taking almost $2 billion annually out of Ontarians’ pockets, according to the government’s estimates.
This while Ontarians are saddled with the highest electricity prices in Canada, which have doubled in the past decade.
Desperate to get re-elected in an election she must call by June, 2018, Wynne will now subsidize hydro rates by $24 billion for the next four years.
Already the most indebted sub-sovereign borrower in the world, Ontario will borrow between $21 billion and $93 billion more to finance this, according to the province’s Financial Accountability Officer.
On Monday, Ontario Climate Change Minister Glen Murray announced he’s quitting politics to head an environmental think-tank.
But that’s a footnote to Ontario’s long, painful and expensive experience with green energy, a cautionary tale of what not to do, which will at least have some value if other provinces learn from its mistakes.

[ZR]

So we've been reading about how Ontario is actually producing too much power and dumping it at a loss, new story is Ontario is negotiating with Quebec to buy power. WTF is wrong with this picture?


Ontario’s Liberal government is talking with Quebec about a plan to purchase power, but insists no deal has been struck.
Colin Nekolaichuk, spokesman for Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault, denied a report in La Presse Monday that said a deal had been inked in which Ontario would purchase eight terawatts of power annually from Quebec over the next 20 years.
That electricity — roughly 6% of the Ontario’s annual supply — would be enough to power 800,000 homes a year.
Any deal must be cost effective for ratepayers and support the government’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Nekolaichuk said.
“While we haven’t yet received an offer that meets those core objectives, we look forward to continued discussions with our Quebec counterparts,” he said in a statement.
The report also said that Ontario would pay 6.12 cents per kilowatt hour with the rates growing at 2% a year over the life of the deal. It also says the agreement would be “pay and take.” Ontario would pay for the entire package annually regardless of how much electricity it uses.
A senior government source told the Toronto Sun that the deal referenced in the La Presse story was an “unsolicited proposal” from Hydro Quebec made in May. When the government looked at the details, it discovered such a deal would cost each ratepayer $30 more a year.
In a letter dated July 27 to Quebec Energy Minister Pierre Arcand, Thibeault rejected the offer, saying it would cost Ontarians more in the long-run.
Progressive Conservative energy critic Todd Smith slammed the apparent deal and demanded to know why the government is talking with Quebec when — by its own admission — Ontario has an over-supply of power.
“At the end of the letter (to Arcand) it says they’re continuing to negotiate with Quebec,” Smith said. “The thing that’s so astonishing to me is why this secret deal is even in negotiations in the first place.”
“Kathleen Wynne and Glenn Thibeault need to categorically reject this deal,” he added.
Ontario Energy Association President Vince Brescia said he’s disappointed the agreement is being hammered out behind closed doors.
“If this particular deal is pursued, Ontarians will not get the benefit of competition to ensure it is the best of all possible options for the province, and companies who have invested in Ontario and have employees here will not get the opportunity to provide alternatives,” he said.

[RedSN]

Quebec offers to sell power to Ontario.
Ontario rejects the offer because it's too expensive.
Todd Smith (PC) "slams" the government saying they should reject the offer.


Am I missing something?

[ZR]

If we indeed have excess power and are dumping it to the US for pennies on the dollar of what we pay for it, why is there any discussion in the first place? Keep in mind, there are producers around Ontario being paid at this very minute not to generate power.

[RedSN]

I guess I misinterpreted the term "unsolicited proposal".
I guess I'm also assuming that the unnamed senior government source is telling the truth :spitcoffee: ...I'm better now. Just needed my morning coffee.

[ZR]

Progressive Conservative finance critic Vic Fedeli says he’s asked the province’s fiscal watchdog to probe Ontario’s 2016 purchase of hydro from the Quebec government.
PC Finance critic Vic Fedeli said he asked Financial Accountability Officer Stephen LeClair to look into the deal inked between the provinces last Fall. That agreement will see Ontario spend $70 million over seven years to buy electricity from Quebec.
Fedeli said the FAO has agreed to look at the deal and will report back in four months. LeClair’s office said Thursday that it does not publicly comment on its investigations.
Fedeli said the request is important because Ontarians still know few details about the deal.
“What are we paying? They wouldn’t disclose any details,” Fedeli said. “We already produce a surplus of power in Ontario, are we going to just be selling this power back to Quebec at a loss? That’s what it appears.”
Fedeli also said the FAO has agreed to look into any future deals the province signs with Quebec to buy hydro. That could include a rumoured deal, details of which leaked to media this week, of Ontario buying 8 terawatts of power from Quebec.
The Liberal government says that deal was rejected by Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault in July because it would add $30 a year to the average ratepayer’s bill.
Thibeault’s spokesman Colin Nekolaichuk said the government welcomes the FAO’s review of the deal.
“The electricity trade agreement reached last fall with Quebec is helping to make electricity in Ontario more affordable, clean, and reliable,” he said in a statement to the Toronto Sun. “The agreement is projected to reduce electricity costs in Ontario by $70 million over the life of the deal. And by offsetting reliance on peaking natural gas facilities, it also reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 1 million tonnes every year — a significant 25% reduction in emissions from the electricity sector.”

[ZR]

Here we go again, an attempt to make us feel better about hydro rates.


The province is set to unveil a pilot project that will allow hydro customers to tailor on and off-peak billing times to their lifestyles, CTV News Toronto has learned.
Likened to pick-and-pay cable packages, the government is looking to help consumers feel like they are saving money by paying in a way that makes sense for them.
Sources told CTV News Toronto that the new hydro packages in the pilot will be tailored to different lifestyles, with peak and off-peak pricing options that accommodate different schedules for cooking, doing laundry and entertaining.
PHOTOS


https://www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.3511277.1500554610!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_225/image.jpg (https://www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.3511277.1500554610!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_960/image.jpg)

A hydro tower is shown in Toronto on Wednesday, November 4, 2015. The Ontario government's plan to lower hydro rates, which have roughly doubled over the last decade, is expected to cost taxpayers $21 billion over the next 30 years, according to the province's budget watchdog. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese)



For example, one option dubbed “The Overnight” would allow a customer to implement a “super off peak rate” that would be much lower between midnight and 6 a.m. That package would benefit shift workers and those who charge electric cars overnight when usage is at its lowest.
An “enhanced” option would allow customers to implement on and off peak prices with a much sharper price discrepancy, so that on-peak would cost about four times as much as off-peak. That option could benefit people who restrict most of their usage to off-peak times.
The “Dynamic P” option would introduce variable peak prices between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m., with all other usage times billed at an off-peak price that is 25 per cent lower than the current off-peak price.
Yet another plan being tested involves “seasonal time of use” where consumers would get a single flat rate in spring and fall, and off and on-peak prices in winter and summer.
The time of use pricing in the plans will be set by the Ontario Energy Board.
The plans are also expected to make use of smart meters, smartphones and smart thermostats so that local distribution companies can warn customers before prices are set to rise, allowing customers to remotely adjust their usage.
The $17.5 million pilot project is set to be announced Tuesday and will begin within the next few months for 18,000 customers in Oshawa, York Region, Barrie and London.
The province will be looking to the pilot to gauge customer acceptance, understanding and willingness to pay for certain price points. If the pilot is successful, the new billing options will eventually be rolled out across the province.
The funding for the pilot project is coming from the conservation fund of the Independent Electricity System Operator. Sources told CTV News Toronto that all the plans are revenue neutral, meaning they won’t bring in extra money to government coffers.

[Stephen06GT]

I did a survey on this a mont or so ago. The plans where so convoluted that I will bet most people will just stick with what they have now.

[ZR]

I have no doubt it was. Yet another fail to draw our attention away from their never ending incompetence.

[RedSN]

Likened to pick-and-pay cable packages...
Now there's a great business model to emulate. (where is the head exploding smillie?)

...the government is looking to help consumers feel like they are saving money by paying in a way that makes sense for them.
"feel" like I am saving money!? By paying in a way that makes "sense" to me?

You want the bill to make sense? Remove all the extra pilled on charges that make no sense.

[1quikgt]

I don't want to "feel" like I'm saving money, I actually WANT to save money. How can one provinces electrical system be so fucked up?

[ZR]

In a single word........................ L I B E R A L S

[True Blue]

I'm curious, anyone notice this "up to" 25% saving on their hydro bill in the last couple of billings?

[ZR]

http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/d1/d16fc89b2534b7379e3c6d07ccce3b852a086a4ed7cdb359aa ae4870e40bbc62.jpg

[WTF]

I'm curious, anyone notice this "up to" 25% saving on their hydro bill in the last couple of billings?

another one of Wynne-bag's "stretch goals" no doubt

[Old Fart]

Mine has gone down exactly 25%.

[ZR]

There is no low these pricks won't use to get over on us.

TORONTO - The Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government is flouting accounting rules and taking on an unnecessary $4 billion in extra borrowing costs — to be applied to future electricity bills — to keep the true cost of its Fair Hydro Plan buried, Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk says.
A battle between accountants is not usually the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters, but Queen’s Park was enthralled Tuesday as Lysyk and her experts faced off against the government and its counter experts.
While the Liberals tried to minimize the conflict as a mere accounting dispute, Lysyk said what was at stake was far more important as the financing manoeuvre allows the government to write its own budget bottom line.
“This is wrong,” she said.
Under public pressure to respond to soaring hydro costs across Ontario, Wynne earlier this year released a plan that reduced bills by 25% on average, and promised to keep increases to the rate of inflation for four years — in part by eliminating the provincial portion of the HST from bills.
The government also announced that it would open contracts it had signed with private power suppliers, such as Bruce Nuclear and wind and solar providers, and refinance those usually 20-year deals over a longer period to lower bills in the short-term.
However, instead of borrowing that money itself — the provincial government gets a really good rate — the Wynne team decided to ask Ontario Power Generation to borrow it at higher rates.
The difference adds up to an extra $4 billion in borrowing interest costs — for a total cost of $39.1 billion for the hydro plan — but means that extra red ink doesn’t show up on the province’s books, Lysyk said.
Internal government correspondence shows that was the goal of the financing plan, she said.
Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault said the government made a policy decision that the cost of refinancing electricity assets would be borne by the hydro ratepayer, not taxpayers, as has been the historic practice.
The government’s accounting method has been reviewed and approved by senior staff from several ministries, the cabinet office, Ontario Power Generation, the Independent Electricity Operator, and third-party consultants, including KPMG and Deloitte, he said.
Treasury Board President Liz Sandals noted that they also took hydro relief programs off of the electricity bill, and placed them on the government books, because that was a more appropriate way to record the expense.
“There was no fast ones being pulled at all,” Thibeault insisted.
The government is now estimating the cost of the Ontario Fair Hydro Plan (OFHP) at less than $20 billion.
Lysyk said she consulted with auditor generals from across Canada, and attending in support at her media conference was Tim Beauchamp, the recently retired director of the Canadian Public Sector Accounting Standards Board.
The provincial government’s method of accounting, a first in Canada for any government, is not yet carved in stone and the $4 billion can be saved, Lysyk said.
“There’s still time to fix it,” she said.
What the opposition parties had to say
The Ontario Liberal government “cooks the books” — spending up to $4 billion more than necessary to hide the true cost of its latest hydro scheme, Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown says.
By structuring the cost of the Ontario Fair Hydro Plan (OFHP) in such a way that it was off the government books — adding to borrowing costs but not showing up as more red ink in the provincial budget — the Liberals were essentially forcing taxpayers to fund their re-election campaign, he said.
“This is cynical politics at its worst, making up their own rules, charging Ontario families more to serve the partisan interests of the Liberal Party,” Brown said, shortly after a damning auditor’s report was tabled in the Ontario legislature Tuesday.
The Ontario Liberals, who ran a budget deficit for several years after the 2008-09 recession, announced in their spring budget that the books will be balanced for the upcoming fiscal year.
Provincial voters go to the ballot box this June.
NDP MPP Peter Tabuns, who also sided with the auditor general’s view that this type of accounting was wrong, said the government was attempting to book as an “asset” its ability to charge future hydro ratepayers more than their power will be worth.
“This was one of the most shameless displays I’ve ever seen from Liberal cabinet ministers,” Tabuns said, after Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault and Treasury Board President Liz Sandals defended their financing decisions. “They’re trying to make this whole thing to be a fight over accounting. The guts of this is that the government is spending $4 billion more in interest that we’re going have to pay for in our hydro bills, so they can move these numbers off their books so they can make it look like they’re not running a deficit.

[RedSN]

This should be no shock or surprise to anyone, especially the auditor general. It is EXACTLY what the Liberals said they were going to do: lower peoples electricity bills by "re-financing" the debt. It is still wrong, but it is not a surprise. They didn't magically wave a wand and make electricity 25% cheaper. They turned a debt into an asset, LOL. Supah Genius! My mortgage isn't a debt, it's an asset i just down own yet. :facepalm:

[ZR]

However, instead of borrowing that money itself — the provincial government gets a really good rate — the Wynne team decided to ask Ontario Power Generation to borrow it at higher rates.
The difference adds up to an extra $4 billion in borrowing interest costs — for a total cost of $39.1 billion for the hydro plan — but means that extra red ink doesn’t show up on the province’s books, Lysyk said.

[WTF]

isn't that called cooking the books?

I'd love to see these Ont Libs behind fucking bars

[ZR]

It most certainly is.

[ZR]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-avxkx7hECZM/UlWH4c7ajVI/AAAAAAAATws/-1Wn6UpjtAo/s1600/wynne+stripes3.jpghttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/-avxkx7hECZM/UlWH4c7ajVI/AAAAAAAATws/-1Wn6UpjtAo/s1600/wynne+stripes3.jpghttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/-avxkx7hECZM/UlWH4c7ajVI/AAAAAAAATws/-1Wn6UpjtAo/s1600/wynne+stripes3.jpg

[bluetoy]

The problem is that if and when these idiots get the boot. We are still going to be left with their mess.

[ZR]

http://www.dumpaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/photos-212.jpg

[ZR]

If there is a government more politically corrupt than the Wynne Liberals of Ontario, it has not been invented yet unless one goes to deepest darkest Africa and arrives in Zimbabwe.
Been there; saw that.
It is absolutely scathing, in fact, how wretched this government has become in its quest to con voters.
Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk stopped short of calling them crooks in her damning report Tuesday on their scheme to pay for hydro-rate cuts — their factiously named Fair Hydro Plan — by hiding the true costs of it from their bottom line.
What the Wynne Liberals essentially did to keep the costs off the public books was to figuratively go to a loan shark instead of government lender where interest rates are less onerous
It will cost them — read, Ontario taxpayers — an additional $4 billion in interest fees, money that loan sharks like to call their “juice.”
“Anywhere else in Canada, you won’t see this done,” said Lysyk. “The government’s proposal is to treat that ($4 billion) loss as an asset.
“That’s like you treating your credit card debt as an asset in your books. Does that sound right to you?”
It was obviously a rhetorical question being posed by Lysyk because what the Wynne Liberals are doing is as wrong as wrong can be, and is only legal because it involves government.
Try such a stunt in private industry, and it would be criminal.
If any more proof is needed to punctuate the gall of the Ontario Liberals, they are spending another $5.5 million to run ads on radio and television to tell voters that their 25% cut in hydro rates is all on the up-and-up, and that there is no false bottom.
It’s a crock, of course, but they are counting on the electorate to be as dumb as posts and wave pro-Liberals flags next election because their hydro rates are almost affordable.
Yes, but not less costly for long, stupid people.
Not only does the Liberals’ “Fair Energy Plan” add $28 billion in debt, it adds that aforementioned $4 billion in unnecessary interest payments because they borrowed indirectly through the back door from agencies like Ontario Power Generation (OPG) instead of through sources that would require fiscal transparency and openness.
It’s politically sinful to the point of being unforgivable, and encapsulates what is wrong in governments when politics trumps doing what is right for the taxpayer.
The Trudeau Liberals, unfortunately, are progressively becoming another example of this increasing wrongness.
Their servitude to their own self-interests is slowly rising to the surface, what with their fiddling with ethics regulations, and their championing of so-called “middle class” ringing hollower with every banal reference by their PM.
How can they possibly relate to the middle class when their prime minister is a trust-fund baby who talks about his “family fortune,” and his finance minister is so filthy rich he forgot to tell the ethic’s commissioner than he owns a private villa in France through one of his many incorporated companies?
What the middle class doesn’t forget is a mortgage payment that's due, a rent cheque, the cost their hydro, the rising prices at the grocery store, and the price of gas at the pumps.
And not one of them looks upon their credit card debt as an asset.
This only happens in the Wynne government, a place where the Trudeau Liberals appear to be taking their lessons in foregoing all their high-minded promises of transparency.
The middle class, to the Trudeau Liberals, are really nothing more now than “revenue tools.”
That, too, is becoming more obvious by the day as the contagion spreads like a bad rash.
markbonokoski@gmail.com

[RedSN]

I agree. If I hear Trudeau or Morneau mention "middle class" one more time........


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