NDP proposes to cut hydro rates by up to 30%

[tay]

Plan includes scrapping mandatory time-of-use pricing, cancelling contracts, buying back Hydro One

The party wants to see mandatory time-of-use pricing eliminated, saying it hasn't reduced peak demand by as much as the government intended and is an added stressor for Ontarians.

The NDP also wants to take a fee paid by Ontario Power Generation to reduce the delivery charge for rural Hydro One customers so they pay the same charge as urban Hydro One customers.

Also included in the proposal is a plan to buy back the 30 per cent of shares in Hydro One the government has sold, which the NDP says would cost between $3.3 billion and $4.1 billion.

The NDP says that could be financed through the province's share of its profit from Hydro One over no more than eight years.

As the utility is transitioned back to public ownership, the NDP says a tax benefit given to Hydro One in the process of
privatization could be used to subsidize a drop in bills of 3.2 per cent.

The NDP's plan also includes establishing a panel to examine cancelling or renegotiating long-term power contracts at
above-market rates, capping profit margins for private power companies and making permanent the Liberal government's eight-per-cent rebate on bills while also negotiating with Ottawa to remove the federal portion of HST from bills.

NDP proposes plan to cut hydro rates by up to 30% - Toronto - CBC News

 

[Danbones]

like legal marijuana
we'll legalize it after we get elected...
next time...or the time after that time...

 

[White_Unifier]

And will our taxes subsidize this cut in the rates? Why not just set it at the market price plus moderate profit to cover operational costs? If they want to tax it, go ahead, but set the pre-tax rate at the market rate.

If the poor can't afford it, then fine, increase social assistance premiums for example. Or lower taxes on the working poor. Problem solved.

 

[Murphy]

Ontario hydro rates are over the market rate. We pay the most of any consumer hydro user in North America thanks to the Ontario Liberal govt.

The highest electricity rates in North America | Windsor Star

Thanks to 13 years of Ontario Liberal scandal, mismanagement, and waste, our province’s Hydro One customers officially pay the highest residential electricity prices in North America, surpassing the tiny island state of Hawaii.

 

[mentalfloss]

That money would be better spent subsidising education and daycare.

People need to stop worrying about Hydro as it's a relatively small part of a family's expenses compared to the aforementioned.

I mean, if you're a family of four and your biggest concern is hydro, then you done fukked up.

 

[Angstrom]

Hydro is not a problem in ontario. Our rates are so good, manufacturing wont even consider setting up here without being off grid :roll:

Hydro bills the size of you're morgage, Is really not a problem.

:laughing3:

Especially when you live out of natural gas range.

 

[tay]

I actually read a Toronto Star Tuesday when I waiting to see someone. They had a copy on the desk. The NDP story was on page 5 or so. Not on the front page.

I wonder if Wynne's response will appear on the front page today? I will be going out later for gas so I will take a look when in the store......


Kathleen Wynne will slash electricity rates by 25 per cent this year, the Star has learned.

In a dramatic move to be finalized at cabinet Wednesday, Wynne’s government is poised to unveil sweeping measures to rein in the soaring hydro bills that currently have the Liberals’ popularity plummeting.

Sources say the massive reduction in rates will come mostly by “smoothing out” the financing costs of electricity generation contracts over longer periods.

It’s the equivalent of refinancing a mortgage to enjoy lower payments over a longer time on nuclear reactors, natural gas-fired power plants, and wind turbines.

Wynne’s office refused to confirm details of the 25 per cent solution Tuesday night.

But cabinet ministers are expected to approve the plan during a noon cabinet meeting at Queen’s Park with an announcement coming as early as Thursday.

The 25 per cent reduction includes the 8 per cent rebate of the provincial portion of the harmonized sales tax that took effect on Jan. 1.

While the provincial Liberals have not convinced Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to eliminate the 5 per cent federal share of the HST on hydro bills, they have found other savings.

“We’re taking it to the next level,” Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault told the legislature during Tuesday’s question period.

“We do recognize the system that we built — eliminating coal, rebuilding the grid — that cost billions of dollars. We know that cost actually came at the expense of many families,” he said.

“We’re looking right now at doing some very quick, tangible rebates that people will see in the very, very near future,” he said.

Extending the amortization periods for the life of nuclear, natural gas and wind and solar projects instead of the standard 20-year time period could cut the expense of contracted generation by more than $1.5 billion a year.

Ratepayers should soon see the positive impact on the “global adjustment” line of their monthly hydro bill.

The confusing global adjustment was added to bills in 2005 and is charged to cover the $50 billion cost of contracts with both public and private power generators who receive more than the market price for their electricity.

It is required because most power producers in Ontario are paid more than the going rate so they can build and maintain enough gas-fired power plants and nuclear reactors to ensure a reliable long-term electricity supply.

It also helps cover the controversial green energy premiums — or feed-in tariff payments — to those who generate wind and solar power for the grid.

The benefit of essentially refinancing the global adjustment is that consumers will see a break almost immediately on their bills.

Another smaller measure the government will adopt is to stop electricity ratepayers from bankrolling the Ontario Electricity Support Program, which gives up to $65 a month to low-income earners struggling with hydro prices.

Instead, the cost will be transferred to the broader tax base.

The changes should not affect Finance Minister Charles Sousa’s goal of balancing the books in the spring budget.

The Liberal plan comes days after NDP Leader Andrea Horwath pledged to reduce rates by between 17 per cent and 30 per cent by allowing ratepayers to opt out of time-of-use pricing and capping profits for private power producers supplying the grid.

https://www.thestar.com/news/queens...-wynne-to-cut-hydro-rates-by-25-per-cent.html

 

[IdRatherBeSkiing]

I actually read a Toronto Star Tuesday when I waiting to see someone. They had a copy on the desk. The NDP story was on page 5 or so. Not on the front page.

I wonder if Wynne's response will appear on the front page today? I will be going out later for gas so I will take a look when in the store......

Of course it will. That rag is a Lieberal paper. Don't hide their bias at all.

 

[tay]

Yes!! Shamelessly the had the liberal plan was on the front page. I actually bought one to take to the Doctors office.

Buried on page 5 or 7 today was this article.........


Ontario’s New Democrats have rediscovered the virtues of campaigning from the left. Their solution for the province’s electricity pricing woes is to re-embrace the old-time religion of public power.

Critics accuse them of pie-in-the-sky thinking. And their plan, entitled “Pay less; own more” does skip over many details.
Still, Andrea Horwath’s NDP is onto something. Ontario’s experiment in the stealth privatization of what used to be called Ontario Hydro is a failure. It hasn’t matched generating capacity to need. It has produced unnecessarily high electricity rates.

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2017/03/01/andrea-horwaths-ndp-rediscovers-the-virtue-of-public-power-walkom.html

 

[Murphy]

Bob Rae was one of several disasters that Ontario has felt over the past 20 odd years. Horwath's hydro rate idea is about the only hope that the NDP have of forming a government in Ontario.

WRT to voting, I have no options. The Liberals are a waste of skin. They should be press ganged into cleaning up the mess they made here, starting with McGuinty's band of thieves. Wynne's group and the NDP will be chained to them. Patrick Brown is also a colossal waste of skin as well. He's the Justin Trudeau of the Ontario PCs here.

I sure hope the Marxist Leninists or the Rhino party fields candidates...We're done.

 

[Jinentonix]

That money would be better spent subsidising education and daycare.

People need to stop worrying about Hydro as it's a relatively small part of a family's expenses compared to the aforementioned.

I mean, if you're a family of four and your biggest concern is hydro, then you done fukked up.

You really are a moron. When your hydro bills exceed your rent or mortgage payments without a dramatic corresponding increase in usage, it's a friggin' problem.
Some friends of mine bought a house 10-12 years years ago in Whitby. Their hydro bills were initially in the $150-$175/mo range. Their hydro use has remained relatively consistent over those ten years but their hydro bills are now approaching $600/mo.
Maybe you should step out of mommy and daddy's basement and take a look at how the real world operates.

 

[mentalfloss]

We're a four person family, both working full time, paying for a mortgage, daycare, property tax, etc.

Hydro has never been a problem precisely because it's a made up one by conbots.

If your Hydro bill exceeds your home bill it means you're watching too much porn.

 

[Jinentonix]

We're a four person family, both working full time, paying for a mortgage, daycare, property tax, etc.

Hydro has never been a problem precisely because it's a made up one by conbots.

If your Hydro bill exceeds your home bill it means you're watching too much porn.

Horse sh*t. That's a matter of bandwidth, not electricity. If the so-called "conbots" made this up, then A) How did my friend's hydro bill (among thousands of others) increase by 300-400% over 10-12 years while their usage remind fairly steady? And B)Why did the Wynned sock apologize for the mess?
Tell me genius, how does using $3600 worth of hydro turn into a $151,000 hydro bill? As I said before, even cities right here in the GTA are getting pissed off at the hydro bills. Are the street lights watching too much porn at night or something?

 

[tay]

Here's Wednesdays Star

 

[petros]

Hydro power will be lowered? What about wind power or nuclear?

 

[JLM]

Hydro power will be lowered? What about wind power or nuclear?

Nuclear is a bad word, Pete!

 

[DaSleeper]

Here's Wednesdays Star

Doesn't the OEB control the rates down there?

 

[Murphy]

Here is the CBC story about the Liberal's 17% decrease in rates. The underlining in the article is mine. After you read through it, please note that no Liberal, including Wynne herself, takes any blame for the sheer rapidity and amount of the increases over the years. No one in government even accepts responsibility for any pain and hardship that the government inflicted on many Ontario residents.

She even gets to offload the blame, saying that future generations will pay. As if she would have stopped that from happening, but for the protests of the people about their bills.

One has to wonder how many more increases would have taken place, and the how much more money taxpayers would have been hit with, had the outcries not stopped the recklessness of this government's actions.

It is sad that she cannot be held responsible, or properly punished, for the hardship and tears she has inflicted on people - the elderly, the unemployed, persons living with medical problems, etc. She will just walk away, as McGuinty did, with a fat pension and no remorse.
---

Hydro rates to drop 17%, but Ontarians will pay for it later

Residential and small business hydro bills in Ontario will drop by 17 per cent on average this summer under a new plan released Thursday by Premier Kathleen Wynne.

The plan will lift billions of dollars in costs off customers this year, and load them onto future hydro bills and taxpayers.

The dramatic move comes as Wynne's Liberal government trails the PCs by some 14 points in a range of polls and finds itself nearly even with the NDP ahead of next year's election.

Wynne acknowledged the bill for the across-the-board-relief will eventually come due for ratepayers. (This is her way of saying, that ratepayers are going to pay later. Don't blame us! - murphy)

"Over time, it will cost a bit more. That's true," she said when detailing the plan.

"And it will take longer to pay off. That's also true. But it is fairer, because it doesn't ask this generation of hydro customers alone to pay the freight for everyone before and after."

The Liberals say the plan will cut 25 per cent off the average residential and small business bill. That figure includes an eight per cent reduction that kicked in Jan. 1, when the government exempted residential electricity costs from the provincial portion of the HST.

The rest here.

Hydro rates to drop 17%, but Ontarians will pay for it later - Toronto - CBC News
---

Part Two

There are a few things about this story that interested me.

First, the obvious ploy by Liberal strategists is to take Ontario's anger full in the face a year and a bit before the next election. They are hoping that they can leave this hydro disaster behind them before the next election in 2018.

The other thing is the polls, WRT the popularity of the individual party leaders. For me at least, it's obvious that a leader pays for the fortunes and performance of the party he or she leads. That said, Wynne is disliked by almost everyone. Next most disliked is Patrick Brown (PC). Then Andrea Horwath (NDP)

Horwath is a lot like Ed Broadbent. Well liked personally, but many feel is with the wrong party.

 

[petros]

"And it will take longer to pay off. That's also true. But it is fairer, because it doesn't ask this generation of hydro customers alone to pay the freight for everyone before and after."

This generation and another to pay off whirlygigs?

That means at least 20 more years of gouging.

Holy f-ck.

 

[Murphy]

Yes, and one has to wonder about a number of other things, apart from "refinancing".

According to the Financial Post, Ontario Hydro profits for 2014 were $749 million dollars. I am sure that dollar amounts can be located and published here, but they are a money maker. How many years has H1 been in the black? What is being done with the profits?

When you make $749 million in profit, I am sure that paying down any debt, reinvesting in infrastructure and putting money away for future needs is something that most of the money can be used for. But is it? What's being done with the profits?

Five things you need to know about Hydro One: Big revenues, big profits and big salaries | Financial Post

Profits 2015

Were apparently higher after the 2nd quarter than for the same period the year before.

Hydro One Q2 profit rises 16%, revenue flat compared with last year | CTV News