The Ontario NDP platform: Politics trump good energy policy...again

One thing I see missing from your comments and that is really disappointing is any acknowledgement of the difference in control in conservation between tenants who pay their own bills and their landlords.

Many have argued that tenants controlling their usage would improve conservation but in fact that is not true since the landlords own the insulation, the windows, appliances, furnaces etc., when the tenants pay the bill there is no incentive to improve any of these. Metering and turning the bills over to tenants washes the hands of a landlord's need to improve efficiency. Conservation is more than turning off a CFL bulb.

Just go down to the local business construction centre and you will still see stacks of baseboard heaters no home owner paying their own bills would install but remain a cheap and popular option for landlords who never face a utility bill. They still go out the door and thousands of them remain in place in rentals long after any home owner who lives in the place would have ripped them out and installed some kind of high efficiency furnace.

With all the programs to help home owners improve their efficiency over the years we have a widening gap between owner-occupied residences and tenants who pay the bills. The latter is where you see the real waste and punishing these mostly lower income tenants with high bills is not the answer since they cannot make the required changes.

Mr. Suzuki, I would hope that you could see this and campaign for minimum standards for energy efficiency for rental housing. As it is in Ontario there are none. The minimum standard to rent a residential unit in Ontario is that the tenant needs to be physically able to heat the unit to room temperature at whatever waste and cost it takes. There is no minimum insulation, draft control, windows (many tenants have single pane cottage sliders), furnace efficiency etc. These landlords do not have much incentive to improve the units even if they have a partial subsidy because they pay none of the utility cost and competing landlords are not any better. The market does not solve the problem. It is also worth pointing out that while building standards have improved, at least in Ontario the vast majority of rental properties were built in a different era.

If you want to advocate for punitive rates and promote retrofits for those who own property, then you have a social as well as environmental responsibility to campaign for minimum standards for rentals when the tenants cover the utilities and some kind of program schedule to force landlords with horribly inefficient units to upgrade them. Only then can the idea of tenant responsibility for conservation be something other than a cruel joke. And of course since it is rental stock that is in the worst shape then addressing that will create the greatest environmental benefit.

Now in the meantime it is one thing to say you should not subsidize energy and that you need to address income but the reality is that income is not being addressed and higher energy costs are not always promoting conservation— at times they are just punitive.

Worse, by using rates rather than regulations you allow people of greater means the ability to continue to waste. Unfortunately, the effects of higher bills fall disproportionately on those who are the least able to moderate them and have little effect on those who have enough means that the incentive is just not enough. The monster home will blast the air conditioning long after poor people are shivering in the dark. We are long past the time when some people should be able to use their higher economic status to waste at will or to use the market in such an unequal society. We need to move to regulations that control waste and bringing in minimum standards for rental properties is a good start.

The main reason energy prices are going up is the Free Trade Agreement with the U.S.A.. The price of oil in Canada is fixed to the world price because of this agreement with the U.S, Mulroney guaranteed we have to pay high prices.

A very confusing article! What do you call the NDP policy of reducing taxes, energy or otherwise on those most needy, politics? I agree that th “politics” of the “hard working families of Ontario” is driving me mad, but the NDP has always been behind the need to help those in the lower ranks of our economy. I’ve asked the NDP for more on their environment policy. PS Read comment from Gerry on July 13. That what I meant about this article being confusing.

thanks.

Pat Hawk

Here are some responses to a few of the points raised about this posting:

To Josh:

I appreciate your thoughtful comments. Let me respond to some of your points.

If the NDP’s concern really is the low-income families who have to decide between buying food and paying their hydro bills, why would they use such a blunt instrument as energy tax cuts that benefit everybody, regardless of income, and that studies show will benefit the rich the most? Why not use a targeted policy, such as enriching the Ontario Sales Tax Credit or the Ontario Child Care Supplement to help low-income individuals and families make ends meet and even deliver some help to middle-income individuals and families? And why not pair those with a home efficiency program that is targeted at low-income families, so they can reduce their energy costs without requiring an upfront investment that most of these people couldn’t afford?

And who do you think will be hurt most by a $2.8 billion reduction in taxes collected by the province? When there is less money for social services, health care, and education, it is the poor who are hardest hit.

So why would the NDP propose policies—tax cuts to different energy sources—that help the rich the most and hurt the poor the most, while also undermining progress on energy conservation and efficiency? The answer to all these questions and the only conclusion I can draw for such poor policy choices is that those policies were chosen for their political attractiveness rather than their policy merits. I do not doubt the NDP’s commitment to helping poor people, but it’s unfortunate that in the NDP platform this concern is buried under by political populism.

I do agree with you, Josh, that some very poor decision-making has happened in the past and continues to happen with respect to Ontario’s electricity choices. Specifically, it is astounding to me that after the debacles over nuclear power and the $20 billion stranded debt created by investing in nuclear power in the past, both the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives remain committed to either refurbishing old reactors, building new ones, or both.

To Colette:

Hi Colette. I never said that increased fuel cost was the reason for increased electricity prices. What I wrote was that the increase in electricity costs was mainly the result of successive Ontario governments neglecting needed investments and that now we need to play catch-up. (The increase in the cost of gasoline and home heating fuel is because conventional sources of oil and natural gas are running out and so companies are now developing more remote, more expensive, and more polluting forms of these fuels.)

As for renewable energy, it is quite simply wrong to say that there has been no testing of renewable energy for reliability or cost. There is no shortage of that kind of research, even quite a bit that relates directly to Canada’s and various provinces’ electricity systems. But the best evidence that clean, renewable energy is both reliable and cost-effective is the real-world and large-scale implementation of wind, solar, and geothermal sources of power in places as diverse as Germany, Denmark, China, and Iceland.

Recent research by the Pembina Institute shows that, even going forward, investing in a major way in clean, renewable energy in Ontario will have virtually no impact on the price of electricity. That price will go up regardless and to the same degree whether we invest in more clean energy or move backwards by relying even more on dirty energy from coal-fired and natural gas-fired power.

To Gerry:

Gerry, I tried to explain why I don’t think “energy poverty” is the rationale for the NDP’s proposals to cut energy taxes. The NDP’s proposals quite simply do not make sense if the goal is to help low-income families. As explained in the post to Josh, the NDP’s approach is much too blunt; i.e., it helps everyone…and the rich more than the poor, and it will necessarily lead to cuts in social services, cuts that are more deeply felt by those on low and fixed income.

I actually don’t doubt the NDP’s commitment to poverty alleviation, given their track record on this issue. However, the only explanation I have for such poor policy choices is that political opportunism was a stronger motivation than choosing policies that would help poor families the most.

People must realize that Electricity is not a right. It is a privilege that we are abusing. I find it hard for someone to be upset about a $600 electric bill. You are obviously ok with it, otherwise you would make changes to lower your bill. There are many ways to lower your usage without sacrificing comfort. My monthly bill includes water and I pay a maximum of $120 a month. We watch TV, have AC, but we don’t waste.

We all need to understand that conservation does not mean that you are loosing your freedom or comforts that you’ve grown to love. You just need to be smart about it.

The NDP platform gives cuts to gas and energy bills not just for low income families to survive but midle class families as well. I conserve energy as much as I can. I use alternatives as much as possible but yet the rising costs are still a major hit on our income. More and more families are falling into poverty because they can’t afford the basic costs. As far as gas is conserned, we own the most fuel efficient car we could afford, we walk when we can or bike. But we can’t afford to live in a big city and that is where the work is. So we live in a small town and need gas if we want to have a paycheck. What would your solution be to these problems??? The NDP party seems to be the only one listening to this. They haven’t released all of their platform but I look forward to hear what’s next. Until then I will try to save the energy and gas as much as I can and hope for a break soon!!

Gerry & Josh, what you’re missing is that if the problem to be solved is that some (or many) people can’t afford their electric bills, then you need to address funding to those people specifically. You either provide support to those with the lowest income, or retrofit/upgrade money for those stuck with the most energy waste.

What the NDP (and PC, and Liberal) policies of lowering electric rates across the board do is lower costs for everyone — rich or poor — and lower them MORE for anyone who uses more electricity, either because they are rich or are more wasteful.

No-one is saying that electricity prices aren’t a burden for many, but the solution is to reduce poverty and reduce energy waste, not to subsidize the prices. If all you do is subsidize with cheaper electricity prices, you are giving a handout to the rich, rewarding those who are wasteful, and taking away the incentive for individuals (and businesses) to conserve and be efficient. Which means you’re just making the problem worse in the long run.

This is a good analysis of the Ontario NDP platform. To be fair, I think a similarly fair analysis of the Ontario Green Party platform should also be offered.

The gas tax cuts proposed by the NDP is sheer idiocy; why isn’t anybody talking about the Green Party’s platform? It seems to be the only one out of the four that proposes long term planning as opposed to these myopic policies exemplified by the NDP, PC and even Liberals to some extent.

Please stop confusing the public with the idea that increased fuel costs are the reason for increased electrical costs. Ontario does not produce electricity using oil and is now pushing forward with Natural gas simply to appease the issues around global warming and the perception that coal is spewing C02 as a pollutant. It is NOT!

The point is that there is zero scientific testing of renewable energy for technical matters (e.g. reliability) and economics. Do you really think that any alternative energy should be mandated on the public prior to such independent testing??

Just because something has the impratur of “green” or “clean”, must it always supercede everything else such as efficiency, cost, reliability, environmental impact and health effects??

Yes we have an aging infrastructure, but it has been noted that 56% of the Liberal gov’t forecasted increases (46% in the next 4 years) are due to “GREEN Energy” which includes several expansions to allow for green project development. This is being borne off the backs of Ontario taxpayers to allow developers very lucrative contracts that in the end will nothing to address the AGW issue.

Dale, does the ONDP platform show or not show a commitment to share the capital costs of building transit infrastructure with municipalities?

I’m sure Mr. Marshall has the best of intentions but his shortsightedness borders on complete negligence.

I work in northern Ontario and I have the privilege to work in a position where I interact with people struggling to pay their energy bills every day.

I say privilege not because I enjoy working with those who have been so neglected by provincial policy that they have to make the choice between buying food an paying their hydro bills, but because I have a job, as many of the main employers in our region have fled due to the high price of electricity in this province.

Mr. Marshall is right that the energy infrastructure in this province has been grossly neglected by countless governments, but that does not mean we should penalize those struggling to make ends meet with hydro bills that take up 2/3 of their monthly income.

I’m not just talking about the working poor, but the middle class in our region are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. When hydro bills are $600-700 per month you know there is a problem, yet we have been stuck with a government that has steadfastly refused to acknowledge any issues during their time in government. Conservation is key, but conservationist policy is not what we have. Heat in the winter in our region (where temperatures regularly hit -40) is essential. Yet we have a provincial administration that chooses to cut the time of use pricing in the summer to appease those who may be mildly inconvenienced by the price of air conditioning to the expense of those who desperately need a price cut in the winter.

They have chosen to have the northern part of this province, who generate some of the cleanest, most reliable energy in Canada, subsidize southern Ontario industry at the expense of our jobs, our financial security and common sense because of the vote saturation in the south, as opposed to the north, where we respect the environment and our land, but are penalized because of a miscalculation of Confederation that makes us part of Ontario.

Our grid is separate and efficient, yet we pay to subsidize poorly run southern utilities, nuclear plants and other poorly conceived notions thought up by those who are hell bent on what they believe is green despite all rationale and common sense.

Mr. Marshall needs to take a look at the entire province, wake up and realize that the policy advocated here is not reactionary and not a vote buy by anyone. It is well thought out policy that reflects our natural diversity and realizes that while conservation and environmentalism are important and realistic goals, those goals have to be tempered by the fiscal reality that not a single person can afford a $500 per month hydro bill, regardless of location and no subsidies, tax breaks or other grants can offset unrealistic costs caused by poor policy decisions from our past.

The interesting thing about this is that the US Government has already published one study that I know of, perhaps more that I don’t know of, that looks at how many UNTAPPED oil spots there are in the US. We’re no where near in as dire straits as the companies and the government would have us seem. It makes the government even more disgusting when they take advantage of that fact and abuse a situation that could be a lot better if corporations would get the lead out and stop hoarding oil in easy conservations waiting for prices to get so high. We’ve got more than enough to ease us into a new era of power usage except that we’ve got the people in power who are so dang greedy. The world makes me sad.