Energy Probe

February 23, 2006

EXCERPT

House Hansard: Session 38:2, February 23, 2006

Orders of the day

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The Acting Speaker: Further debate.

Mrs. Elizabeth Witmer (Kitchener-Waterloo): I’m pleased to join the debate on Bill 21, the Energy Conservation Responsibility Act, 2006, which was introduced by the Minister of Energy and which has been capably responded to by our critic, John Yakabuski.

I’m pleased to join the debate today. I think this particular piece of legislation is another example of the fact that this government, despite having been in office for two and a half years, still has no comprehensive plan for energy conservation, or a plan in order to ensure that people and businesses in this province will have a stable, affordable supply of energy as they move into the future. In fact, we’re seeing this concern for this supply and affordability reflected as some of the jobs are lost in our province. We’ve lost over 80,000 jobs. We also know that, despite the investment made this week into the forest industry, we still continue to hear from people in the north about their concern about rising energy costs and the lack of this government in the development of any plan that will respond to those concerns.

So we have another bill, a bill that, at the end of the day, contains little in the way of detail. It has not been terribly carefully considered. It doesn’t speak to how this is going to be funded and certainly, for some people throughout the province of Ontario, these smart meters are going to cause some financial hardship. Also, for some people, particularly tenants, they’re simply not going to have any control over their ability to conserve energy and control their own personal costs.

What is happening in this bill? Well, the government has said they’re going to install somewhere in the neighbourhood of 800,000 smart meters by the end of 2007. They want to make sure that, by 2010, 4.3 million customers in this province would have these meters. We know that the cost of these first meters is going to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of at least $400 million. We also know that this cost is ultimately going to climb to somewhere in the neighbourhood of $2 billion. We also know that this huge capital cost, this huge investment, has never had the opportunity to benefit from any cost-benefit analysis. We’ve also just heard from one of the other members that this technology is probably going to be changing over time. We could have a lot of obsolete meters in this province in very short order, and they’re going to contribute to a problem for our landfill sites.

When people get these new meters, we understand that they’re probably going to be charged, monthly, $1 to $3 for their use. Tom Adams, the executive director of Energy Probe, says that consumers are going to end up paying more for the new technology but have little to show for it. He says that right now, most consumers pay about 50 cents a month for their meters, and he believes that, with these new devices, that cost is going to increase to $8. That is a tremendous amount of money for individuals in this province who are on low incomes.

I want to address some of the concerns that we have been hearing about. I want, before I do that, to quote – this was a quote from the Record, the Kitchener-Waterloo newspaper, on November 4, 2005, when Dave Martin, energy coordinator for Greenpeace Canada, said: “Don’t get me wrong; I think time-of-use … rates is a … good thing … but smart meters are not a substitute for real conservation programs.”

I guess that’s something we need to point out again and again. Despite the title of this bill, there is not, and has not been in the past two and a half years, any effort on the part of this government to encourage people to conserve energy. There have been no incentives; in fact, incentives that were there in the way of energy-efficient appliances that we put in place have been removed.

The other concern I have, as far as this bill and smart meters are concerned, is that there’s nothing said here as to how we’re going to educate the population. I agree that most people want to do what they can to conserve energy, but you also have to educate the public. You need to carefully articulate the purpose, you need to inform the public as to what these meters can and cannot do, and you need to provide some resources in order that individuals will understand the role of these meters. Certainly this bill doesn’t deal with any of that; in fact, the information contained in the bill is quite sparse.

Now, in my community I have heard concerns, in particular from tenants. I want to go to a presentation that was made here to the committee regarding smart meters and sub-metering in rental units. This is an oral presentation that was made to the standing committee on justice policy with regard to Bill 21, and it was made on behalf of RENT. Now, you might ask, who is RENT? They’re a group of people in my community. It stands for Renters Educating and Networking Together. It is a volunteer, proactive non-partisan group of concerned citizens who seek to improve the state of tenants within the region of Waterloo through education, organization and general representation.

These people came forward and made a presentation to the committee. They expressed some concerns about the proposal that has been put on the table by the government, and they go on to say that in every rental situation, tenants have neither the means nor the authority to make truly meaningful conservation changes required in their units. For example, they talk about the fact that they’re not in a position to upgrade insulation, to do any structural replacement or to repair any draughty windows and doors, to repair or upgrade the heating system, to install programmable thermostats or to replace old appliances with new energy-efficient models.

They go on to say that this proposal on the part of the government to shift these rapidly rising energy costs to tenants penalizes Ontario’s lowest-income tenants.

They talk about the fact that the burden will be on the tenants, who basically have no control over the upgrading of the energy efficiency of the building. They go on to say that, yes, a tenant could turn off a few lights. They could do their laundry at night, but we also know that in some buildings the laundry services are not available at night, so that’s really not an option. It’s very difficult for tenants to have any real control over achieving maximum energy savings or conservation, and I want to get that on the record.

They, of course, express concern about the fact that some of the hydro costs as a result are going to be downloaded to them and are concerned that, again, they can’t do anything about this. For example, they mentioned that if they have energy-guzzling appliances, they can’t do anything whatsoever about changing that.

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So they are certainly concerned about their ability, and they do ask a lot of questions. They did make a presentation to the committee on behalf of the many people in the region of Waterloo that they do represent. They ask questions about sub-metering: “If sub-metering is allowed, how much will the sub-metering company charge for its administrative fees? What controls are in place for sub-metering and future fee increases?”

They are also concerned about demographics of tenants. For example, what about tenants working outside the home daily or living in Florida for extended periods during the winter? Are the tenants retired people or parents at home with children who will require more hydro usage because they are home through the day? Should these people pay more?

So I think you can see that, certainly, this whole issue of sub-metering and tenants is going to leave us with some questions that obviously need to be answered in order that the tenants and landlords of this province are both treated fairly and equally.

The other presentation that was made to the committee was made on behalf of a group called the Waterloo Region Community Legal Services. The presentation was made by Ms. Gay Slinger. Again, they are a community legal clinic. They’re funded through legal aid. I want to point that out because, obviously, the people they assist are people who meet the legal aid criteria, and many of them are living on social assistance benefits, disability pensions – the unemployed, people working for minimum wage and, of course, seniors.

These are the seniors who are living on fixed, limited incomes, and they also have certainly expressed their concerns about the rollout of the smart meters throughout the provinces to the buildings, the multi-residential buildings, and also the use of sub-metering, which is going to allow landlords to unilaterally, they say, impose individual electricity billings on tenants. Often, this is going to be through private sub-metering companies.

Again, they support, like everybody else in this province, the need to conserve energy and reduce the consumption of energy. They also appreciate and recognize, as we all know we must, that we have to develop a culture of conservation. However, this bill doesn’t speak to that.

They go on, then, to talk about the fact that they’re concerned because tenants cannot simply shift using energy off to peak periods. They talk about the fact that it’s not within their control to do so in any meaningful way to save money. That’s a concern that they talk about.

They go on to echo the concerns of RENT, where they say tenants are not in a position to retrofit the buildings in which they live in order to garner any major or significant savings with respect to true conservation. They know that that can’t be made. They can’t make those changes. So they do want the government to distinguish between the private homeowner and the tenant because, of course, private homeowners do have some ability to deal with drafty windows, they say, making upgrades to the home, dealing with issues like insulation, and also installing high-efficiency furnaces. However, we do need to keep in mind that all of those are costly initiatives. At the end of the day, obviously, there are going to be some cost-benefits.

She goes on and makes an interesting comment: “When I walked into this room over the lunch break” – she’s now referring to the justice committee that was meeting – “it was empty at that time – it was stifling hot in here because you don’t have the control” – meaning control for the heat – “in this room. In order to control your own heat, you had to open a window. So there’s your heat going out the window.”

She used that point to illustrate the fact that tenants are living with the same lack of control in their units. That’s a good case, because today in this building many parts of this building are hot, and there is actually very little control that any of us has to make changes.

She goes on to say that tenants simply “do not have the ability to effect true savings,” and that’s all tenants, regardless of their economic class. You simply don’t have the ability to do so. Again, that is a concern. She goes on to say that if you’re going to speak to and deal with “meaningful conservation,” we need to take a look at the energy efficiency of the entire building as opposed to the energy efficiency of just one unit. You have to take a look at the whole infrastructure of the building and, of course, you have to take a look at the appliances in the building. Again, many of those appliances are owned by the owner of the building, and there is nothing the tenant can do if those appliances are not energy efficient.

She goes on to say, “Understand that even if you’ve got a gas-heated building but it’s not working properly – and that’s not within your control either – that’s when you start using your oven for heat and you start buying space heaters.” Of course, that sends the electric bill even higher.

She talks about clients who are disabled, elderly or single parents, who are home all day. She says they don’t have the same luxury as people who are going out to work, who can turn down their thermostat in the morning and come back from work and turn it up in the afternoon. They just are not in a position where they can sit in the dark all day, they can have the radio and TV off, they can turn down the thermostat if, in this instance, it is even individually controlled. Again, this bill does create some hardships for some of the people in the province who simply don’t have the opportunity to benefit.

I think we can see here that, despite what the government says about this legislation, at the end of the day the government has continued to demonstrate throughout the past two and a half years that they do not have a plan for energy. There is a growing concern in this province. I hear it particularly from people in the business sector, people who create the jobs in Ontario. They continue to tell me, “You know, Elizabeth, you read about the jobs we’re losing in our community, the jobs that we’re losing in the province of Ontario” – that is now over 80,000 jobs since January 2005 – “but we want you to know that our business, despite the fact that we are still operating, is also suffering and our bottom line, obviously, is not where we would like it to be because of the escalating energy costs and because of the lack of any stable supply.” As they’re looking forward and trying to predict, it’s difficult, because they have absolutely no idea what their costs are going to be one, two and three years out. So this becomes one of the factors that causes people who own businesses in this province to take a look at whether or not they can afford to stay here. It’s one of the factors they need to look at. So I would encourage this government and this Premier to develop an energy plan, as opposed to going out and speculating about rolling blackouts this summer, because the people in this province deserve it and need it.

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February 20, 2006

EXCERPT

House Hansard: Session 38.2, February 20, 2006

Mr. Norm Miller (Parry Sound-Muskoka): It’s my pleasure to add some comments to the minister’s speech this evening and that of the member from Peterborough on Bill 21, which is the Energy Conservation Responsibility Act, 2005.

Just a minute ago, the member from Timmins-James Bay was saying how conservation is motherhood and apple pie, and I agree with that. The question for me is, should these smart meters – which are just part of this bill, but it seems to be what we’re focusing on right now – be mandatory?

We heard from the leader of the third party when he was up in Atikokan; his number for the cost of the program is $2 billion. But for the individual household, the idea of course is that you shift your use of electricity to non-peak times – for example, the middle of the night – and you get a lower cost on electricity. But there is speculation that it could cost up to $8 a month. I know that’s what Tom Adams, who is the executive director of Energy Probe, says they’ll cost.

I attended a day of hearings up in Atikokan – or, rather, up in Thunder Bay. Atikokan Hydro was there and they said that in their remote rural situation in the north, they have situations where they might have six meters. They’re in a very remote situation. They have to build a tower and they have to hook up phone lines. The cost is very substantial – they said up to 80% of the cost of the whole asset of Atikokan Hydro – just to put these meters in.

My feeling is that it should be optional, because in many cases for low-electricity users it just won’t make sense. It will cost you money to hook these meters up, and there will be very little savings. I think it should be up to individual residents, the individual consumer, to decide if they think that by putting in a smart meter, they’re going to save some money and for them it will make sense.

The Acting Speaker: The member from Peterborough has two minutes to respond.

Mr. Leal: I want to thank the members from Pickering-Ajax-Uxbridge, Simcoe North, Timmins-James Bay and Parry Sound-Muskoka, who provided comments.

I just want to reiterate one of the best real-life examples, Chatham-Kent: 1,000 meters in their pilot study, an all-in cost of $1.29, verified by a third party, the accounting firm of Deloitte. I’d recommend that everybody in this House take an opportunity to read the results from Chatham-Kent, because it provides detailed background information that’s so important to legislators in order to make a decision on Bill 21, which is the smart metering energy conservation initiative.

My colleague the member from Mississauga West in fact had a smart meter installed in his home. He indicated to us in committee the amount of electricity he has saved in his home when he introduced and installed a smart meter to his day-to-day living. Clearly, the member from Mississauga West demonstrates what effect smart metering can have.

If you extrapolate the result from Chatham-Kent and you look at it closely, I think it’s reasonable to conclude that the estimates that have been provided by the Ministry of Energy to install smart meters in the province are certainly within the dollar amount that has been suggested for this initiative. When you look at Chatham-Kent and see that people did save electricity and the payback was greater than the cost of installing the smart meter, the real value of smart metering and conservation for Ontario is very visible through that study.

The Acting Speaker: Further debate?

Mr. Yakabuski: It’s a pleasure to join third reading debate of Bill 21, An Act to enact the Energy Conservation Leadership Act, 2006, and to amend the Electricity Act, 1998.

I would put it to the member for Peterborough – I do appreciate the member for Peterborough’s input on the travelling committee as well as that of the member for Stormont-Dundas-Charlottenburgh, the member for Mississauga West, the member for Stoney Creek – I think there’s probably at least one more, but I can’t think of it right now. Those are members from the government side. I want to thank my colleagues the member for Parry Sound-Muskoka and the member for Haldimand-Norfolk-Brant for travelling and the member for Durham for sitting with me on that committee, and also the member for Kenora-Rainy River and leader of the third party for their input of course.

I would like to know if I could get some kind of commitment from the member for Peterborough who, as you know, is also the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Energy. He was going on quite extensively about how he applauded the pilot project in Chatham-Kent and quoted that figure very often of, I believe, $1.29.

Mr. Leal: All in.

Mr. Yakabuski: All in, $1.29. That’s the way we like it: all in, full price, $1.29. Could we expect it to be a commitment from this government that that is what smart metering will cost? I hardly think so. I heard somebody in the background, the member for Pickering-Ajax-Uxbridge, saying “Probably less.”

Probably not. The estimates go as high as $8, as you know, Mr. Speaker. My friend from Parry Sound-Muskoka indicated that Tom Adams of Energy Probe says the figure could go as high as $8. This could be another $2-billion boondoggle like the federal Liberal gun registry: a complete mess that has done nothing but cause problems and solved none.

Hon. George Smitherman (Minister of Health and Long-Term Care): That’s why the chiefs of police are in favour of it.

Mr. Yakabuski: The Minister of Health has wakened from his slumber. It’s good to have him here tonight.

Mr. Speaker, if I could get back on topic without the heckling from the government side, this could be another $2-billion boondoggle, as I say, just like the federal Liberal gun registry.

Some things were raised at the committee hearings with regard to smart meters; there is a varying range of opinion as to whether they’re worthless, somewhat useful, very useful or the best thing since they invented the wheel. They did run the gamut, and we had varying opinions on them.

There were lot of concerns about smart metering: a lot of concerns with regard to privacy, concerns with regard to lack of detail. You see, the minister started talking about smart meters months and months ago – I’m trying to think of exactly how many – but as of yet, no RFP, and people who are in the business are asking themselves, “Is the government doing it; is it not?” There’s no way they’re going to be in a position – they’ve got a new energy pricing schedule based on smart metering to come into effect on May 1, a scaled price of 2.8, 6.8 and 9.3, depending on the time of day you’re using the power. They’re not going to be in any position at all to implement that, because none of these meters are going to be in place. We’re in February now; we’re almost into March.

It’s like everything else: The government is great at coming up with an idea, they’re great at picking a destination, but they’re not all that good at navigating their way there. As Yogi Berra once said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably going to end up somewhere else.” That’s just about what this government is embarking on – a trip to never-never land or something, or maybe they think they’re going to Disney World. Who knows? Maybe they think they’re going to get cheap power down there.

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