In November the Canadian government announced sweeping plans to phase out coal-fired power generation across Canada by 2030. Coal miners and electricity consumers across Canada can only be left wondering whether the same Liberal party deep-thinkers that brought economic havoc and skyrocketing electricity rates to Ontario will do the same thing to the rest of Canada, and particularly to the coal-reliant Western provinces.
The federal government’s coal-power phase-out announcement comes on the heels of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s separate proposed carbon tax that would cost $10 per tonne in 2018 and rise $10 per tonne each year to $50 per tonne by 2022 — a plan that has been bitterly opposed by Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall.
(According to pollster Angus Reid, energy realist Wall has by far the highest approval rating among Canada’s premiers at 58%, while Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, who has presided over the implementation of the province’s disastrous Green Energy Act, has an approval rating of only 16% — or 8 points lower than George W. Bush at his nadir.)
About 80% of Canada’s electricity comes from non-coal sources, and the federal government’s new plan would see that number rise to 90% by 2030. But provincial governments are lining up for exemptions, with Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan already negotiating so-called “equivalency agreements.”
Alberta’s left-leaning New Democratic Party government — led by Premier Rachel Notley, who has slumped to a 31% approval rating — is taking an even pricier approach by agreeing in November to pay three coal-power producers operating in the province more than $1 billion as compensation over the next 14 years for prematurely closing their coal-fired power plants.
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