hydro rates a prob... who knew?
- Thread starter 10larry
- Start date
That was an interesting article.
Rates will continue to increase, regardless of which government is in control. For Liberal election strategists, this is great news. Voters have short memories, so a small rate rollback or price freeze on hydro will buy votes.
Patrick Brown's mob will have to be careful how they fight back. It's too early for the Conservatives to hammer Wynne right now, but they have to feed the anger until election time. Set up and strike. It's chess. In the meantime, nothing gets better for hydro paying Ontarians.
Rates will continue to increase, regardless of which government is in control. For Liberal election strategists, this is great news. Voters have short memories, so a small rate rollback or price freeze on hydro will buy votes.
Patrick Brown's mob will have to be careful how they fight back. It's too early for the Conservatives to hammer Wynne right now, but they have to feed the anger until election time. Set up and strike. It's chess. In the meantime, nothing gets better for hydro paying Ontarians.
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The problem has a name. Energy Poverty
'People have to choose between heating and eating': Rising hydro costs hit Ontarians - Home | The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti | CBC Radio
It's not just Ontario
Carbon tax would hit the poor hardest, says Fraser Institute - Prince Edward Island - CBC News
ENERGY POVERTY | BCPIAC
'People have to choose between heating and eating': Rising hydro costs hit Ontarians - Home | The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti | CBC Radio
It's not just Ontario
Carbon tax would hit the poor hardest, says Fraser Institute - Prince Edward Island - CBC News
ENERGY POVERTY | BCPIAC
Yes, I saw a similar story on Global news. I suspect the Liberals have done so well there for years because of the increasing foreign demographic in the GTA. In the city of Toronto for example, 49.9% of Toronto residents are foreign born.
I am not a sociologist, but wonder how many of these new arrivals are ignorant of Ontario's problems and politics, don't wish to rock the boat, or both? Does language play a role? The GTA is Liberal high ground.
How many of those living in the GTA have been outside of Canada's p€nis which is identical to America from the viewpoint of Canadians outside of S ON looking in.
Same goes for the BC Lower Mainland/Fraser Valley.
Same goes for the BC Lower Mainland/Fraser Valley.
In order to turn things around, something earth shattering must happen to influence voters in these areas.
I remember years ago, when I lived on Van Isle, going to visit a friend in Surrey. In certain respects, being in the lower mainland reminded me of the GTA. I am so glad not to live in a city.
WRT hydro, one could argue that it doesn't matter how the rates get lowered, as long as they come down. I am a political cynic however. The Liberals have, in large measure, done severe damage to the province that will take more years than I have left to correct. Having a 1 or 2 cent per KW rollback on my bill won't fix anything. It will buy votes though. The GTA is a tough political nut to crack.
Ontario will remain a fiefdom for years to come. A political backwater.
My critics will suggest I am racist for suggesting the high numbers of new Canadians that are eligible to vote are part of the problem. It cuts two ways. The Liberals are using this demographic as part of her election toolbox. It will be up to the NDP or Conservative strategists to knock them off the throne.
The recent Conservative by-election win prompted Wynne's 're-evaluation' of Ontario Hydro. In that same interview, she slipped responsibility to the minister of energy. She has to avoid the sh!t sticking to her. Ministers and provincial MPs are sacrificial lambs.
I remember years ago, when I lived on Van Isle, going to visit a friend in Surrey. In certain respects, being in the lower mainland reminded me of the GTA. I am so glad not to live in a city.
WRT hydro, one could argue that it doesn't matter how the rates get lowered, as long as they come down. I am a political cynic however. The Liberals have, in large measure, done severe damage to the province that will take more years than I have left to correct. Having a 1 or 2 cent per KW rollback on my bill won't fix anything. It will buy votes though. The GTA is a tough political nut to crack.
Ontario will remain a fiefdom for years to come. A political backwater.
My critics will suggest I am racist for suggesting the high numbers of new Canadians that are eligible to vote are part of the problem. It cuts two ways. The Liberals are using this demographic as part of her election toolbox. It will be up to the NDP or Conservative strategists to knock them off the throne.
The recent Conservative by-election win prompted Wynne's 're-evaluation' of Ontario Hydro. In that same interview, she slipped responsibility to the minister of energy. She has to avoid the sh!t sticking to her. Ministers and provincial MPs are sacrificial lambs.
Selling a Crown asset in order for it to be legal to charge a Federal Carbon Tax is reason enough to get rid of them.
It's a tithe that is supposed to relieve your guilt of being a carbon sinner.
ECO FEES in BC are nuts. I bought a signal bulb for my truck yesterday. 10 cent eco fee. For what I have no f-cking clue. Glass is rock for f-ck sakes. Are rocks a threat to the environment? Plants love biodegradable brass.
It makes no sense.
It's a tithe that is supposed to relieve your guilt of being a carbon sinner.
ECO FEES in BC are nuts. I bought a signal bulb for my truck yesterday. 10 cent eco fee. For what I have no f-cking clue. Glass is rock for f-ck sakes. Are rocks a threat to the environment? Plants love biodegradable brass.
It makes no sense.
If they are not born here they have to wait 5 years then go through the application process for citizenship which takes another year or more before they can vote. By that time, if they have cared enough to become a citizen, they should have some handle on the politics.
It isn't the price of the power that is the issue. The problem is either deregulation or lax regulation of the extra charges for transmission and delivery (I thought those were the same thing but apparently not nowadays). Our electric costs about $200/mo on an equal payment plan but $125-$150 of that is not actually the cost of power. The suppliers in Alberta are collecting $100 million/mo or more in added charges in my estimation and for doing nothing that they didn't do before deregulation.
Same with all the 'recycling' fees on tires and batteries etc. The recyclers do not get any of that money. Where does it go?
Unfortunately, most voters wouldn't have a clue what 'disposing of a Crown Asset in order to charge a tax' means. They would ignore this completely.
Taxation might be necessary to fund certain things, but creative taxation/funding, that is, revenue generation to pay for mistakes or mismanagement, should come with a price to the person(s) responsible. It is, in my view, unacceptable to vote them out, award them a pension, deal with their mistakes and have them walk away unscathed.
Carbon taxes are on my creative taxation list. My hydro bill is on this list as well.
My bill was $293.21
Electricity:
On peak - $42.51
Mid peak - $29.90
Off peak - $77.67
This makes my usage - $150.08 High, but only half the total.
There are three levels to encourage people to use electricity at different times. We're told this reduces the strain on the grid during the day, when demand is highest.
This is what I don't get. The world is more electric/electronic than ever before. The problem is not the strain, it's Hydro's continued inability to provide electricity to meet demand. W have more electronic devices, used by more people, when they are awake. My bill has increased by over 270% in 16 years, but my consumption has dropped by 21%. This is according to my bills.
To add insult to injury, they did not keep up with system maintenance. Hydro is being grossly mismanaged.
Delivery charge
On my bill, $100.40, or 67% of my usage.
Described primarily as 'line losses', when conducting electricity over a distance. This was marketing brilliance. Line losses have always existed, but until recently, not used as a method of generating extra cash. This charge was added some years back, on top of usage.
According to those in the know, and NOT employed by Ontario Hydro, this rate is higher than what should be assessed as an actual loss. From what I've read, the amount varies, but I've seen over 300% higher by some estimates. At any rate, it's another charge.
Regulatory charge
No one is really sure what this means. On my bill, it's $9. Phone the hydro company and ask three operators. Get three different answers. Again, more marketing brilliance.
Up until recently, we had the Debt Retirement Charge. On my bill, it is still listed, but says $0. There is a ++ beside the words. At the bottom, it says I saved $9.49 because apparently I have an exemption.
Why even itemize it if I'm not being charged? Could it be marketing? I'm made to feel good because I allegedly saved $9.49? Why was I paying to retire a debt that mismanagement caused? Well, mismanagement or not, someone has to pay for infrastructure replacement I guess.
HST
13% tax. On my bill, $33.73. But here's the thing: I'm taxed 13% not only on consumption ($150), but on line losses and the regulatory charge as well ($110). That smacks of taxing taxes.
Taxation might be necessary to fund certain things, but creative taxation/funding, that is, revenue generation to pay for mistakes or mismanagement, should come with a price to the person(s) responsible. It is, in my view, unacceptable to vote them out, award them a pension, deal with their mistakes and have them walk away unscathed.
Carbon taxes are on my creative taxation list. My hydro bill is on this list as well.
My bill was $293.21
Electricity:
On peak - $42.51
Mid peak - $29.90
Off peak - $77.67
This makes my usage - $150.08 High, but only half the total.
There are three levels to encourage people to use electricity at different times. We're told this reduces the strain on the grid during the day, when demand is highest.
This is what I don't get. The world is more electric/electronic than ever before. The problem is not the strain, it's Hydro's continued inability to provide electricity to meet demand. W have more electronic devices, used by more people, when they are awake. My bill has increased by over 270% in 16 years, but my consumption has dropped by 21%. This is according to my bills.
To add insult to injury, they did not keep up with system maintenance. Hydro is being grossly mismanaged.
Delivery charge
On my bill, $100.40, or 67% of my usage.
Described primarily as 'line losses', when conducting electricity over a distance. This was marketing brilliance. Line losses have always existed, but until recently, not used as a method of generating extra cash. This charge was added some years back, on top of usage.
According to those in the know, and NOT employed by Ontario Hydro, this rate is higher than what should be assessed as an actual loss. From what I've read, the amount varies, but I've seen over 300% higher by some estimates. At any rate, it's another charge.
Regulatory charge
No one is really sure what this means. On my bill, it's $9. Phone the hydro company and ask three operators. Get three different answers. Again, more marketing brilliance.
Up until recently, we had the Debt Retirement Charge. On my bill, it is still listed, but says $0. There is a ++ beside the words. At the bottom, it says I saved $9.49 because apparently I have an exemption.
Why even itemize it if I'm not being charged? Could it be marketing? I'm made to feel good because I allegedly saved $9.49? Why was I paying to retire a debt that mismanagement caused? Well, mismanagement or not, someone has to pay for infrastructure replacement I guess.
HST
13% tax. On my bill, $33.73. But here's the thing: I'm taxed 13% not only on consumption ($150), but on line losses and the regulatory charge as well ($110). That smacks of taxing taxes.
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Ontario’s ruling Liberals are expected to unveil promised cuts to electricity bills in Monday’s Throne Speech, tackling the province’s most intractable pocketbook irritant.
But with many of the costs of the province’s electricity system tied up in lengthy contracts and long-term infrastructure investments, there is little the government can do on the structural side to lower bills in the 20 months before the next election.
The alternative is a straight subsidy to hydro consumers. The Liberals have hinted at one possible way to do this:
The province’s climate-change plan last spring pledged to divert proceeds from the coming cap-and-trade system to lower bills. Other options include removing the HST from electricity bills or using tax dollars to subsidize bills.
However they make it happen, the Liberals are certain to face criticism that a subsidy is an inefficient Band-Aid solution diverting funds from other needs.
That may not much matter to the Liberals, who got an earful from voters in Scarborough-Rouge River – a long-time Grit fiefdom that fell to the Tories in a by-election earlier this month – as they campaigned amid a sticky summer when the non-stop need for air conditioning pushed bills skyward.
Finance Minister Charles Sousa talked up the coming hydro relief Friday, even as he defended high electricity prices as simply the cost of building a reliable system.
“Yeah, I am excited,” he said. “We understand that we need to improve and mitigate those costs for everyday Ontarians, so they can have greater affordability. But at the same time, we needed to make those investments to provide for that integrity.”
The Liberals have piled costs onto the province’s electricity system over the past 13 years. Some are in the form of upgraded infrastructure; others are lengthy contracts with private gas, wind and solar generators to provide electricity at fixed prices to replace the province’s shuttered coal plants; some are the price of running the province’s nuclear reactors, which provide the lion’s share of Ontario’s power.
But the options for a straight subsidy all come with problems.
Giving Ontarians a rebate using money from the treasury – as the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit did from 2011 to 2015 – would cost roughly $1-billion annually for a 10-per-cent subsidy, Mr. White said, piling on even more debt at a time the province is trying to balance the books and tackle its $300-billion provincial debt.
Taking the HST off bills, meanwhile, would have a similar effect, depriving the government of much-needed revenue.
And using cap-and-trade cash to pay for subsidies would take that money away from other measures to fight greenhouse gases.
The government has suggested strongly it is interested in the latter route
Ontario Liberals expected to reveal electricity cuts as election looms - The Globe and Mail
But with many of the costs of the province’s electricity system tied up in lengthy contracts and long-term infrastructure investments, there is little the government can do on the structural side to lower bills in the 20 months before the next election.
The alternative is a straight subsidy to hydro consumers. The Liberals have hinted at one possible way to do this:
The province’s climate-change plan last spring pledged to divert proceeds from the coming cap-and-trade system to lower bills. Other options include removing the HST from electricity bills or using tax dollars to subsidize bills.
However they make it happen, the Liberals are certain to face criticism that a subsidy is an inefficient Band-Aid solution diverting funds from other needs.
That may not much matter to the Liberals, who got an earful from voters in Scarborough-Rouge River – a long-time Grit fiefdom that fell to the Tories in a by-election earlier this month – as they campaigned amid a sticky summer when the non-stop need for air conditioning pushed bills skyward.
Finance Minister Charles Sousa talked up the coming hydro relief Friday, even as he defended high electricity prices as simply the cost of building a reliable system.
“Yeah, I am excited,” he said. “We understand that we need to improve and mitigate those costs for everyday Ontarians, so they can have greater affordability. But at the same time, we needed to make those investments to provide for that integrity.”
The Liberals have piled costs onto the province’s electricity system over the past 13 years. Some are in the form of upgraded infrastructure; others are lengthy contracts with private gas, wind and solar generators to provide electricity at fixed prices to replace the province’s shuttered coal plants; some are the price of running the province’s nuclear reactors, which provide the lion’s share of Ontario’s power.
But the options for a straight subsidy all come with problems.
Giving Ontarians a rebate using money from the treasury – as the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit did from 2011 to 2015 – would cost roughly $1-billion annually for a 10-per-cent subsidy, Mr. White said, piling on even more debt at a time the province is trying to balance the books and tackle its $300-billion provincial debt.
Taking the HST off bills, meanwhile, would have a similar effect, depriving the government of much-needed revenue.
And using cap-and-trade cash to pay for subsidies would take that money away from other measures to fight greenhouse gases.
The government has suggested strongly it is interested in the latter route
Ontario Liberals expected to reveal electricity cuts as election looms - The Globe and Mail
I would suggest that this is pre-election posturing. A little early, but Liberal voters are showing their displeasure at the party and the Liberals have to do something to address this. Wynne got the hint when the Liberals lost the recent by-election.
Promises. Promises.
What I said a few days ago is coming true. The government will have to calm the voters and roll back hydro rates It s a great way to placate the public and buy votes. It's far too early to see how this will affect their re-election chances, but high hydro rates is just one of the problems that Liberal mismanagement is directly responsible for. Their problems are coming home to roost.
Promises. Promises.
What I said a few days ago is coming true. The government will have to calm the voters and roll back hydro rates It s a great way to placate the public and buy votes. It's far too early to see how this will affect their re-election chances, but high hydro rates is just one of the problems that Liberal mismanagement is directly responsible for. Their problems are coming home to roost.
Is a 10% subsidy on bills that have gone up 400% really going to help anyone? That would be like the OESP - gives me thirty bucks to compensate for the two hundred fifty my bill's gone up (while use dropped) from the seventy-two it used to be prior to Wynne's BS
I would suggest you are 100% correct...........
Eliminating the 8-per-cent provincial share of the 13-per-cent HST as of Jan. 1 will save the average household $130 a year.
Many rural ratepayers, who cannot take advantage of the inexpensive natural gas for heating that urban Ontarians can, will receive an additional $540 annually.
While that rebate will cost the treasury about $1 billion a year, the Liberals insist they are on track to balance the books in the 2017-18 budget expected for March.
“Ontario’s economy is still in transition, but our recovery is firmly track,” Wynne said in a statement.
“While many are benefitting from the growth we’ve achieved, others have yet to share in Ontario’s resurgence,” the premier said.
The Liberals, who will mark their 13th anniversary in power next month, are smarting from the loss of the Scarborough-Rouge River byelection to the Progressive Conservatives on Sept. 1.
Mindful that Ontarians head to the polls in spring 2018, Wynne is desperate to give her majority Grits a reboot.
https://www.thestar.com/news/queens...st-cut-from-hydro-bills-in-throne-speech.html
Do these idiots think people are as stupid as they are? Any subsidy or tax removed is coming straight from the taxes people pay. They are just giving you back your own money and it will either be a reduction of spending elsewhere (not likely from this govt) or more debt to pass on to your children and grandchildren. Even the cap & trade idea falls under this. Businesses are simply going to increase sales pricing to recoup the increased cost making the end consumer pay more which will then be used to lower their hydro bill, again the public will foot the bill for the entirety of the price reduction.