(May 11, 2011) In a much ballyhooed speech yesterday, would-be Ontario Premier Tim Hudak promised to kill the financing method that Premier Dalton McGuinty uses to build wind turbines. But Hudak doesn’t promise to kill wind turbines. He merely proposes some alternative financing method, not yet described, to bring Ontarians more wind turbines. Hudak’s wind turbines will also be uneconomic, just less so than McGuinty’s.

Would Ontario get more or fewer wind turbines under Hudak’s sketchy plan than under McGuinty’s? He doesn’t say. He does say that he won’t try to undo contracts with those who already have McGuinty-style deals – not surprising since many of them live in rural ridings Hudak hopes to win. Also not surprising, Hudak doesn’t rule out offshore wind turbines, which McGuinty had cancelled. Hudak has scant hope of winning some ridings that would be affected by offshore wind turbines.

Hudak promises to “put families first and respect that they pay the bills” but he indicates he will continue to throw good money after bad by continuing to support Ontario’s uneconomic nuclear reactors. And he doesn’t say boo about the single biggest measure he could take to keep power bills from exploding – reversing the senseless shutdown of Ontario’s perfectly good coal plants.

In his carefully crafted speech, Hudak claimed to be a delivering a “clear message.” Perhaps he will let the Ontario public in on his plans in the weeks ahead. At this point, his message is anything but clear.

To read the inscrutable Hudak speech, click here.

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and the author of The Deniers. LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com.