FORD MUST CANCEL LIBERALS' RENEWABLE ENERGY CONTRACTS

    Ford has every reason to return the power system to some semblance of economic sanity. Ontario is now burdened by some of the highest power rates of any jurisdiction in North America, throwing households into energy poverty and forcing industries to close shop or move to the U.S. The biggest reason by far for the power sector’s dysfunction is its renewables, which account for just seven per cent of Ontario’s electricity output but consume 40 per cent of the above-market fees consumers are forced to provide. Cancelling those contracts would lower residential rates by a whopping 24 per cent, making good on Ford’s promise to aid consumers.

        Not only are Ontario’s renewables hopelessly expensive — 90 per cent of their cost comes from government-mandated subsidies — they also loom as major despoilers of Ontario’s environment. Solar cells cannot be easily recycled, leading environmentalists to warn that solar-panel disposal will become an explosive issue in two or three decades because of leaching from cadmium, a suspected carcinogen, and other solar panel components. Unsightly wind turbines and the long-distance transmission corridors they often require already rank as a chief despoiler of the Ontario countryside, quite apart from their toll on birds and bats.