Tom Adams

December 9, 2003

The Tories under Ernie Eves had no plan, only a hodge-podge of contradictory policies – price freezes, billions in new spending on the nuclear industry, subsidies to conservation, pretenses at deregulation. That way lay ruin.

The NDP had a plan but it was just as ruinous as the Tories non-plan. The NDP wanted to give big rate breaks to major polluters in unionized industries while keeping the power system as a monopoly. This was the same policy that the old Tories and old Hydro employed for decades – until it almost bankrupted the province.

Now the Liberals are in power and, to their credit, they have agreed to freeze electricity prices at a higher, more realistic level. Unfortunately, in all other respects, they’re continuing with the failed Tory approach – more nuclear boondoggles and high-profile but phoney conservation programs, a new freeze, and a continuation of the old Hydro monopoly system.

These policies threaten us with another Hydro bankruptcy and more blackouts. We must make the government come to its senses, and realize we shouldn’t be putting all our eggs in one big vulnerable monopoly that brings us expensive power. Instead, we need dozens of small generating plants that will compete with each other and guard against disruptions. As the Great Blackout last summer showed, small systems are resilient as well as economic, and when they do go down, they come back quickly. The blackout lasted longest for those reliant on large coal and, especially, large nuclear plants.

The best energy policy by far that Ontario has ever had came from the Bob Rae government in the early 1990s. Rae brought in Maurice Strong, perhaps the world’s best known environmentalist, as Hydro’s chairman and he soon made the tough but necessary economic and environmental reforms. Strong, who met with members of our staff and board on several occasions, agreed with our plan to break up the Hydro monopoly. He ended nuclear expansion and shut down existing nuclear reactors. He ended Hydro’s phoney conservation programs, which amounted to an empty billion-dollar PR gesture. And he convinced Bob Rae and many in the NDP that privatizing Ontario Hydro and breaking up the power monopoly was the best course for Ontario consumers, the Ontario economy, and the Ontario environment.

Rae almost convinced his cabinet to do the right thing — he came within one vote in cabinet of privatizing the power system. Had Bob Rae succeeded, Ontarians would now be as fortunate as people in the U.K.: After the UK broke up its power monopoly, its nuclear expansion plan was canceled, existing coal and nuclear plants were shut down, and rates plummeted for households and businesses alike.

The Rae government lost the next election – Ontarians elected a Tory government that promised to break up the Hydro monopoly, and complete the job that the Rae government started. Unfortunately, the Harris government also let down the people of Ontario.

But it’s not too late to inject reason into our electricity system. In the U.S., the people of California have suffered even more than we have in Ontario from an unprincipled hodge-podge of policies. Californians learned their lesson. They recently replaced the politician who ruined their power system and put in a new governor –Arnold Schwarzenagger – who campaigned on a promise to end costly state control over power production in favour of competition and reliable electricity supplies.

The evidence is in from hundreds of power systems around the world – monopolies produce expensive power, have highly unreliable systems, and dare to build dangerous nuclear plants; only competitive power systems produce clean, cheap and reliable power.

With your help, we successfully brought this message to Ontarians in the 1990s – that’s why the Rae government came so close to acting. With your renewed help, we can successfully bring this message to Ontarians again. As you may know, Energy Probe is one of the most quoted organizations in Ontario. By funding our research and educational efforts now, before the new government irrevocably commits to more errors, we can redouble our efforts and avoid future economic and environmental disasters.

Sincerely,

Tom Adams
Executive Director