Ontario Economy – Page 12 – Republic of Mining

How Kathleen Wynne has Ontario going backwards – by Charlie Gillis (MACLEAN’S Magazine – June 23, 2016)

June 23, 2016

http://www.macleans.ca/

Ontario’s premier insists she has the fix for Canada’s largest economy—more government

The morning after winning her majority, well-pressed and alert despite the previous night’s merriment, Kathleen Wynne stood before her caucus and spoke glowingly of the path ahead.

Her speech was standard post-victory fare—the honour of election, the burden of responsibility. But at its fulcrum lay a phrase of the sort seldom heard in two decades of Ontario politics: this Liberal government, the premier said, would govern from the “activist centre”—a place on the political spectrum which, though undefined, she declared to be the locus of her new mandate.

In the ensuing months, Ontarians would get a sense of what she was talking about. As promised, the province’s $11 minimum wage began rising in pace with inflation, first to $11.25, then to $11.40, giving Ontario the highest pay floor in the country. The Liberals then showed they were determined to push through their own parallel pension plan for Ontario until federal and provincial finance ministers agreed this week to expand the Canada Pension Plan.

Steelworkers rain on Essar Algoma’s bid process – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – June 23, 2016)

June 23, 2016

http://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Essar Steel Algoma’s largest union said it was not involved in the sale process that allowed a New York hedge fund to emerge as the best bet to take over the Sault Ste. Marie steel plant.

Local 2251 is emphatic that it “was NOT involved in the selection of KPS (Capital Partners) as a successful bidder,” said the union in a June 22 message to its members that was released to the media.

KPS is Essar Algoma’s preferred bidder in a proposal that, according to various media reports, would see the assets of the former Stelco steelworks in Hamilton and Nanticoke merged with Essar Algoma in Sault Ste. Marie into a single new Canadian steel producer. Essar Steel Algoma announced June 17 that it has entered into an asset purchase agreement for the sale of the steel works to a consortium of bidders headed up by KPS.

The false ‘choice’ of Kathleen Wynne’s high-cost, low-carbon Utopia – by Kevin Libin (Financial Post – June 9, 2016)

June 9, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

“As economist Ross McKitrick has pointed out, even the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC), the leading light for climate-change scientists, has
suggested a point at which the economic costs of eliminating carbon are more
damaging to people and society than the climate impact from the same amount of carbon.”

Towards the end of the 86-page “Five Year Climate Action Plan,” officially released by Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne on Wednesday, is an artist’s representation of what the province is intended to look like in 2050. Designed like a screenshot of a progressive policy-maker’s utopian video game, there are rows of condos — no sign of any single-family houses — cladded with solar panels and tapping the earth’s geothermal energy for warmth.

Towering wind turbines spin overhead helping to power “low-carbon” businesses, bearing trite signs on their buildings like “Kleen Tech” or simply a logo of a green leaf. Commuters are whisked about on electric rail and electric buses.

You have to look closely to find the cars being refueled with ethanol and renewable electricity; they’re outnumbered by the bicycles.

The economic fraud of Ontario’s carbon pricing – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – June 9, 2016)

June 9, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

The Ontario government’s Climate Change Action Plan is apparently so devoid of solid rationale that Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals have resorted to using videos that manipulate nine-year-old children into making statements on climate science. Brief bits of intellectual child abuse, the main event on the province’s climate change web page, feature five little boys and five little girls declaring that climate change “sucks” and “it’s not like it’s fake or anything! It’s not like an April Fool’s joke.”

The abuse gets worse in a 30-second Ontario-sponsored commercial/video featuring David Suzuki speaking to a large audience of boys and girls, scaring the hell out of them with talk of “we’re in trouble and not enough adults are listening.”

Traffic jams and pictures of cute but vulnerable beavers and caribou flash across the screen.

Revealed: Ontario’s ‘climate change action plan’ – by Robert Benzie (Toronto Star – June 7, 2016)

June 7, 2016

https://www.thestar.com/

Queen’s Park will start a “cash-for-clunkers” program to encourage motorists to switch to electric cars, subsidize free overnight electrical charging at home, and make garage plugs mandatory in all new houses and condos, the Star has learned.

Those are some of the 28 key measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in “Ontario’s Five Year Climate Action Plan 2016-2020” to be introduced Wednesday in Toronto.

The 85-page plan will also “increase the availability and use of lower-carbon fuel” to convince truckers to switch from diesel to natural gas, propane, or gasoline mixed with ethanol. That’s being done in conjunction with the Ontario Trucking Association, Union Gas, and Enbridge.

Kathleen Wynne Ridiculed By Wildrose Party During Visit To Alberta Legislature – by Dean Bennett (Huffington Post – May 27, 2016)

May 27, 2016

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/

“Currently Ontario has the largest subnational sovereign debt
on the planet,” Fildebrandt told the house. “They’re now even
receiving equalization payments. It’s an example of what happens
when a government fails to get its spending under control.”

The Canadian Press – EDMONTON — Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne came to Alberta to talk environment but instead found herself publicly ridiculed on the floor of the legislature as the leader of a failed, debt-ridden enterprise.

As Wynne looked on from the Speaker’s gallery during question period Thursday, the opposition Wildrose party demanded to know why Wynne, a Liberal, was invited while right-centrist and next-door-neighbour Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall was not.

“Invite Premier Wall here! Invite Premier Wall,” Wildrose finance critic Derek Fildebrandt shouted at Premier Rachel Notley as she tried to answer a question.

Electric cars and unicorns: Ontario’s new green scheme – by Margaret Wente (Globe and Mail – May 24, 2016)

May 24, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The future is going to be a lot of fun in Ontario. Just a few years from now, millions of us will be liberated from our evil fossil-fuelled transportation network. Millions of government-subsidized electric cars will whisk us silently to work. Our buses will run on biofuels.

Our retrofitted geothermal-powered homes will keep us warm at prices much higher than today’s natural gas (which would be banned). Vast tracts of land will be diverted to solar panels, which will transform the sun’s rays into clean, green, righteous energy – as soon as we can figure out how to store it and attach it to the grid. Unicorns will frolic in our gardens, and pigs will fly.

Ontario’s new draft Climate Change Action Plan is a breathtaking work of fantasy, wrought by folks who evidently never met an engineer, an economist, or anybody else who knows how the real world works. Glen Murray, the Environment Minister, is a notoriously Big Thinker.

Leap comes to Ontario with Wynne’s new climate change plan – by Rex Murphy (National Post – May 21, 2016)

May 24, 2016

http://news.nationalpost.com/

Remember the Leap Manifesto? That was the wild-eyed ultra-greenist, anti-capitalist dogma-sheet that Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein dragged out to the New Democratic Party convention recently. It received a blistering reception from the only NDP premier in Canada, Rachel Notley, and was excoriated by labour leaders in Alberta – where its fanatic zealousness threatened the peace and point of the convention itself.

It is the finest specimen of the Greenist philosophy yet put to hard drive or paper. Kill oil. Kill all fossil fuels. No pipelines. No refineries. Cripple the economy. Deny the poorer nations. If not in your backyard, it should go in no backyard.

No doubt it was meant to be radical. But only if radical now means a cascade of unexamined and baseless assertions, a manifest distaste for reality, a raw pulse of dogmatic certitude, and a set of prescriptions that would obliterate a modern economy, push hundreds of thousands out of work, and bring the industrial age back to the days of horse cart and covered wagons for transportation.

Ontario Aboriginal Minister accused of betraying First Nations – by Alan S. Hale (Timmins Daily Press – May 20, 2016)

May 20, 2016

http://www.timminspress.com/

TIMMINS – Discussion during the final day of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation’s Spring Chiefs Assembly got quite heated after provincial Aboriginal Affairs Minister David Zimmer was the only one out of the three expected government ministers to come and field questions from the chiefs and other delegates.

When it came to his turn to ask a question, Mushkegowuk Council Grand Chief Jonathon Solomon tore into Zimmer about the Liberal government’s climate change legislation which was announced on Wednesday. Solomon called the legislation a “betrayal” and a continuation of the practice of considering the interests of First Nations as an afterthought.

“Mr. Minister I have a lot of respect for you, and I am being respectful when I say that I feel that I have been betrayed. I feel that there is a knife sticking in my back because we have been talking about an honourable relationship, but nothing has really changed,” said a visibly angry Solomon. “They say the Harper era was terrible, we say the Harris era was terrible in this province, but those practices are still continuing despite talk of a positive relationship.”

Ontario’s focus on electric cars a challenge for auto industry – by Cameron French (Yahoo.com – May 19, 2016)

May 20, 2016

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/

Insight – Ontario is hitting the gas pedal on adoption of the electric car, but in order to meet the government’s aggressive goals, consumers and industry will have to accept some big changes, according to experts.

The provincial government’s $7 billion climate-change strategy, leaked this week in The Globe and Mail, lays out $285 million in electric vehicle (EV) incentives, including up to $14,000 on each car purchased, as well as cheap power and a pledge to build charging stations. The goal is to have 12 per cent of all vehicle sales to be electric by 2025, compared to the current levels of a fraction of one per cent.

But don’t expect to be fighting lineups down at the Tesla dealership just yet, say analysts. “Believe me, I would love to see more electric cars as much as everyone else, but 5 per cent by 2020 and 12 per cent by 2025… I think it’s a tad unrealistic,” says Kumar Saha, aftermarket research manager at consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.

Why is Ontario’s green plan powered by so much central planning? – by Globe Editorial (May 18, 2016)

May 19, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Ontario Liberal government’s ambitious “Draft Climate Change Action Plan,” the text of which was leaked to The Globe and revealed on Monday, left us scratching our heads. The problem is not the ambition: Ontario has rightly pledged to reduce greenhouse gases, with 1990 emission levels to be cut by 15 per cent in 2020, 37 per cent by 2030 and 80 per cent by 2050.

Those targets won’t be easy to achieve, but if the science on global warming is right (we think it is), and if the international commitments that Canada and much of the world have signed onto mean anything (they should), then a long-term plan to steadily reduce greenhouse gas output is necessary.

It’s not Ontario’s low-carbon destination that has amber lights flashing. It’s the road it is choosing to get there. Governments are terrible at central planning.

Climate crazy Ontari-ari-ario’s no place to grow, but to get the hell out of – by Ross McKitrick (Financial Post – May 18, 2016)

May 18, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

“Ontario is responsible for such a tiny fraction of global
emissions.[About 0.5%] The Wynne government repeatedly defends
its bungling of the electricity sector on the grounds that at
least it closed two coal-fired power plants. Meanwhile, in
2015 alone, China approved construction of 155 new coal-fired
power plants. … The climate file has pushed deranged
extremism into mainstream policy planning.”

The latest news out of Queen’s Park is that Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals plan to deindustrialize Ontario. Of course they don’t call it that; they prefer the term “decarbonize.” But for an industrial economy, the government’s new climate action plan, leaked to reporters this week, amounts to the same thing.

The proposed scheme beggars belief. Having phased out coal-fired power, the province now plans to phase out natural gas, the only reliable alternative for non-baseload generation. Despite electric cars being extremely costly and unpopular, more than one in 10 new car sales will need to be electric, and every two-car household will have to own at least one electric car.

Energy, auto sectors raise red flags over Ontario climate plan – by Adrian Morrow and Greg Keenan (Globe and Mail – May 17, 2016)

May 17, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

TORONTO – Ontario’s energy and auto industries say they were surprised by the province’s ambitious plan to slash greenhouse gases, warning that it will drive up home heating costs by as much as $3,000 for homeowners, and that auto makers will not produce enough electric cars to meet its targets.

Environmentalists, meanwhile, say the blueprint puts the province in the vanguard of the battle against climate change, outpacing every other province but Quebec.

The Liberal government’s $7-billion Climate Change Action Plan, scheduled for release in June but obtained this week by The Globe and Mail, promises to start phasing out natural gas for home heating. This will be done partly through incentives for owners of homes and buildings to install geothermal and solar heating, and partly by changes to the building code mandating that, by 2030, all new houses and small buildings be heated by something other than fossil fuels. Natural gas currently provides 76 per cent of the province’s heat.

Ontario’s big, green assisted economic suicide plan – by Kevin Libin (Financial Post – May 17, 2016)

May 17, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

“In assessing “investment changes in key economic sectors” resulting
from carbon pricing, the roundtable bluntly projected that spending
in the mineral and freight transport sector would virtually dry up due
to “reduced output” (refining, too, although that’s meant as a feature,
not a bug). Investment would also shrink in those “value-added”
industries that provincial governments love — from cars and paper
mills, to chemicals, metals, and building construction.”

To get an idea of what Ontario could look like a couple of decades out under Liberal energy minister Glen Murray’s “climate action plan” — which was revealed in detail in Monday’s Globe and Mail — who better to rely on than the man himself, Glen Murray?

Back in 2008, when he chaired the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, Murray — along with his acting CEO, Alex Wood, now executive director of the Ontario Climate Change Directorate — offered up a plan that looked remarkably similar to the new Liberal cabinet document. In fairness, the NRTEE document hardly offered the perniciously micro-managed prescriptions for people and businesses that Murray has graduated to now.

Ontario to spend $7-billion on sweeping climate change plan – by Adrian Morrow and Greg Keenan (Globe and Mail – May 16, 2016)

May 16, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

TORONTO — The Ontario government will spend more than $7-billion over four years on a sweeping climate change plan that will affect every aspect of life – from what people drive to how they heat their homes and workplaces – in a bid to slash the province’s carbon footprint.

Ontario will begin phasing out natural gas for heating, provide incentives to retrofit buildings and give rebates to drivers who buy electric vehicles. It will also require that gasoline sold in the province contain less carbon, bring in building code rules requiring all new homes by 2030 to be heated with electricity or geothermal systems, and set a target for 12 per cent of all new vehicle sales to be electric by 2025.

While such policies are likely to be popular with ecoconscious voters, who will now receive government help to green their lives, they are certain to cause mass disruption for the province’s automotive and energy sectors, which will have to make significant changes to the way they do business. And they have already created tension within the government between Environment Minister Glen Murray and some of his fellow ministers who worry he is going too far.