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Ontario Economy

Risk of blackouts, higher bills if Ontario sets 2030 target to phase out natural gas, report says – by Matthew McClearn (Globe and Mail – October 8, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Phasing out Ontario’s natural gas power plants by the end of this decade is not feasible and would lead to rolling blackouts and soaring electricity bills, the body in charge of planning and operating the province’s power system said Thursday in a report that gas opponents have criticized as too pessimistic.

In the report, which responds to demands from municipalities to phase out natural gas by 2030, the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) estimates it would cost $27-billion to build alternative generating facilities and transmission lines, plus additional operating costs of $5.7-billion a year, causing a typical homeowner’s monthly bill to skyrocket by an average of $100, or 60 per cent.

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Ford Government eyes auto sector as key to economy – by Andrew Autio (Timmins Daily Press – October 5, 2021)

https://www.timminspress.com/

Ford emphasized that mining in Northern Ontario will be continue to be,
and perhaps even more so, absolutely crucial to the province’s economy
in the coming years. “We will be the No. 1 manufacturer of battery operated
cars and electric vehicles in all of North America,” he said. “We have the cobalt, have the lithium, we have the nickel, all up in the North.”

On Monday morning, Ontario Premier Doug Ford was at Queen’s Park in Toronto for the reading of his throne speech which laid out the provincial government’s objectives moving forward as an election looms in eight months, while his afternoon was spent in the city of Timmins.

Ford, along with a slew of his cabinet ministers, toured the city to get back in touch with the people of the north, and to take questions from reporters in a late afternoon press conference held at Timmins and District Hospital.

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Ontario’s pandemic is getting better. Its other big economic problems aren’t – by Randall Denley (National Post – October 1, 2021)

https://nationalpost.com/

The Ontario government, media and the public have paid attention to little else but COVID-19 for the last year and a half; now that the province is making real progress on the virus, it’s time to switch focus to Ontario’s significant and fundamental economic problems.

While there are disturbing increases in case numbers elsewhere in the country, Ontario continues its gentle downward curve. Hospitalization numbers are stable and death numbers are low.

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Ontario government has made COVID economic pain even worse – by Livio Di Matteo (Fraser Institute Blog – July 13, 2021)

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/

With much of the economic attention in Ontario focused on reopening in the pandemic’s wake, it’s easy to lose sight of the long-term picture. While the pandemic was an unforeseen shock to provincial employment and income, it remains that Ontario has seen weak employment and income growth for much of the 21st century with the decline in growth rates settling in after 2005.

Consider this. From 1990 to 2005, total employment in Ontario grew 23 per cent and real per capita GDP grew by 17 per cent. However, even omitting the COVID year, going from 2005 to 2019, Ontario’s total employment grew only 15 per cent while real per capita GDP grew by 8 per cent.

In the case of employment, this pattern of slowing growth repeats itself across Ontario’s economic regions with a range that is alarming. Indeed, all Ontario economic regions saw lower employment growth from 2005 to 2019.

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Michigan, not COVID, may be the biggest threat to Canada’s economy – by Kelly McParland (National Post – March 5, 2021)

https://nationalpost.com/

The biggest immediate threat to Canada’s ability to emerge from the COVID crisis with a functioning economy lies not in who gets which type of vaccine, how quickly the provinces wean themselves off shutdowns or how many extra billions the Liberals are determined to spend in search of popularity.

It lies in a pipeline. Not the better-known Keystone or Trans Mountain lines that have been the focus of intense national and cross-border debate, but the more obscure Line 5, an Enbridge conduit that carries petroleum and other products from Western Canada to the eastern provinces by way of Michigan.

It usually gets little attention because it’s been in operation with minimal drama since the 1950s. Its future has suddenly become questionable because Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a close ally of President Joe Biden, wants it shut down.

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Sudbury mining supply group stakes its claim in Nevada – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – February 4, 2021)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

MineConnect to establish incubator space for Northern Ontario companies to dive into southwestern U.S.

The mining industry in northern Nevada will have access to Canada’s largest concentration of hard rock mining expertise when MineConnect, Sudbury’s mining supply and service organization, sets up shop in Elko later this year.

The Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development and the Northeastern Nevada Regional Development Authority announced the signing of a three-year partnership with MineConnect to establish a business incubator space this summer to support the state’s mining industry.

The move maintains the momentum in relationship building between the two mining jurisdictions and this country’s expanding investment in Nevada’s robust mining industry, ranging from equipment manufacturing to gold mining.

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GM Canada announces tentative deal for $1 billion electric vehicle plant in Ontario – by Canadian Press (CTV News – January 15, 2021)

https://www.ctvnews.ca/

INGERSOLL, ONT. — GM Canada says it has reached a tentative deal with Unifor that if ratified will see it invest $1 billion to transform its CAMI plant in Ingersoll, Ont., to make commercial electric vehicles.

Unifor National President Jerry Dias says along with the significant investment the agreement will mean new products, new jobs and job security for workers.

Dias says in a statement that more details of the tentative deal will be presented to Unifor Local 88 members at an online ratification meeting scheduled for Sunday.

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OPINION: Ten days on the road (in Northern Ontario) – by Charles Cirtwill (Northern Ontario Business – May 29, 2019)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Anyone thinking of making policy affecting Ontario’s Northern regions would be well served to get in a car and drive around the place for a few days.

Anyone thinking of making policy affecting Ontario’s Northern regions would be well served to get in a car and drive around the place for a few days, or even a few weeks, once every year or so.

Now that I think about it, the next time I get that phone call asking, “If you were premier/prime minister, what is the one thing you would do to help Northern Ontario?” that will be my answer: put the deputy ministers on a bus and drive them around the North for meetings at least once every two years.

Don’t fly them in; drive, and stop, regularly. Also, make sure the bus does not have free Wi-Fi – force them to depend on the cell coverage that the rest of us experience daily.

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News Release: First Nations call on Ontario to fix unjust process threatening electrical transmission reliability (January 17, 2019)

Toronto, Ontario – Today, leaders of six First Nations call on the Ontario Government to intervene and fix a broken process created by the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) and the previous Ontario government that ignores First Nations’ rights and northern development pertaining to a necessary and important electricity transmission project planned for Northern Ontario.

The six First Nations are part of Bamkushwada Limited Partnership (BLP). BLP has developed a relationship with NextBridge, the East-West of the East-West Tie Transmission Project that was awarded Leave to Develop by the OEB in 2012. BLP becomes partnered with NextBridge in ownership of this Project when it goes into operation, providing many millions in business contracting and hundreds of employment opportunities for First Nations, and for northern municipalities.

This transmission line is a priority initiative of the Province of Ontario, needed to ensure the reliability of electrical service to communities in the Northwest. Without the Project in-service by 2020, as has been urgently deemed necessary by the Minister of Energy, Northern Development and Mines, and the Independent Electricity System Operator, residential and business customers face a higher likelihood of outages and less reliable electricity overall. NextBridge (partnered with BLP) is the only proponent that can build this line in the timelines that are required by Ontario.

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Economic Statement ignores Highway 69: Fedeli promises: ‘We’re going to deal directly with the First Nations communities to unleash the wealth in the Ring of Fire’ – by Jennifer Hamilton-McCharles (Sudbury Star – November 16, 2018)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

A new mining working group to streamline the regulatory approvals process and attract new investment to Northern Ontario is one of the projects highlighted in Thursday’s Fall Economic Statement to benefit Northern Ontario.

Finance Minister and Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli notes the statement includes a few pages that address Northern issues directly. Four sections of the 155-page document relate to the Ring of Fire, Review of the Far North Act 2010, the mining working group and Northern transportation improvements.

Fedeli says the previous government delayed development of the Ring of Fire for 10 years, “and now we’re saying, ‘no more.’ “There isn’t going to be any more delays and putting things off, as we’re going to deal directly with the First Nations communities to unleash the wealth in the Ring of Fire,” he says.

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Will Ford keep his promise to lower hydro costs? He’d better – by Lawrence Solomon (Financial Post – October 30, 2018)

https://business.financialpost.com/

Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s boast, like that of U.S. President Donald Trump’s, is “Promises Made, Promises Kept.” Trump’s strict adherence to keeping his promises — he has kept two-thirds of his 334 promises to date and broken none of any significance — explains the intense loyalty of his base, his rising popularity and the likelihood of his re-election.

Ford has, like Trump, broken out of the gate upon assuming office by fulfilling an impressive number of election promises, among them scrapping the carbon tax and repealing the Green Energy Act.

But the single most important one for super-charging the provincial economy — lowering electricity rates toward free-market prices by cancelling the above-market renewable energy contracts the past Liberal government handed out to friends and benefactors — seems on course to be broken.

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Make Ontario hydro great again by reviving the Common Sense Revolution – by Lawrence Solomon (Financial Post – June 29, 2018)

https://business.financialpost.com/

Ontario was once known as the engine of Canada’s economy. Today that engine is sputtering after a decade and a half of anemic growth. The province faces a deteriorating credit rating and its runaway $325-billion debt, the highest of any subnational jurisdiction in the Western world, will balloon to $400 billion in six years.

Ontario’s power plants were once called the province’s crown jewels, lauded as the single biggest symbols of the province’s success.

Today, the power sector is the single biggest reason for the province’s fall, the victim of a politically correct Green Energy Act that scrapped high-performing plants in favour of renewable-energy losers that forced Ontarians to pay some of the continent’s highest electricity rates, leading to an exodus of some 300,000 manufacturing jobs and to suffering in much of the provincial economy outside the Greater Toronto Area.

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Canada’s Biggest Steelmaker Sees Layoffs From U.S. Tariffs – by Greg Quinn (Bloomberg News – June 26, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The head of Canada’s biggest steelmaker says he may have to lay off 1,000 workers and review $750 million (US$564 million) of investment if the government doesn’t fight back against U.S. tariffs.

Canada shouldn’t waver in its plan to retaliate against the 25 per cent tariff the U.S. has imposed on steel imports, ArcelorMittal Dofasco Chief Executive Officer Sean Donnelly told lawmakers Tuesday in Ottawa. The government should also seek the permanent elimination of the U.S. tariff, he said.

“This combined impact could result in reduced production, potential shutdown of operating lines impacting over 1,000 direct jobs and over 4,000 indirect jobs in Ontario, in Quebec, with significant implications” to future investment, he said.

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Ignore the green lobby, Doug Ford. Ontarians voted for affordable energy this time – by Peter Shawn Taylor (Financial Post – June 12, 2018)

http://business.financialpost.com/

Peter Shawn Taylor is a journalist, policy research analyst and a contributing writer for Canadians for Affordable Energy.

Elections are often considered to be referendums on the economy. When the economy is performing well, incumbent governments are supposed to benefit from a contented electorate. That’s not what happened in Ontario.

By most measures, the Ontario economy is doing just fine. Unemployment, one of the most important indicators for voters, is the lowest it’s been in several decades. GDP growth is in the two-per-cent range — decent, if not spectacular. Housing starts and other measures of consumer spending seem reasonably strong as well.

Nevertheless, Ontario’s long-governing Liberals were just shown the door in spectacular fashion. Voters were willing to look past the Liberals’ ugly scandals in previous elections for the sake of predictability. But when voters looked at the economy this time, they plainly could not get past one aspect of it that was actually in horrible shape: Energy affordability.

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Sudbury Accent: Northern Ontario being strangled [Part 1 of 5] – by Stan Sudol (Sudbury Star – June 2, 2018)

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

On June 7, the people of Ontario will be going to the polls in one of the most pivotal elections in the province’s history. While Northern Ontario – north of the French and Mattawa rivers, as I have never recognized the Parry Sound and Muskoka ridings as being part of the North – encompasses roughly 90 per cent of the province’s land mass, its population has been steadily declining to slightly over five per cent of Ontario’s total.

Unfortunately, our impact on provincial policies is almost negligible.

A buck a beer, cheaper gas, tax breaks combined with unaffordable infrastructure and social commitments, twinning the trans-Canada in Northern Ontario, buying back Hydro One and jumping on a bulldozer to start building the road into the Ring of Fire are part of a bevy of mostly worthy but unsustainable promises Conservative Doug Ford, Liberal Kathleen Wynne and NDP Andrea Horwath have made.

However, I seldom hear any actual policy initiatives to grow the economy and create wealth so we can afford all these election initiatives and perhaps, just perhaps, put a little money on our provincial debt, which has more than doubled during the past 15 years under the McGuinty/Wynne Liberal era, from about $138 billion in 2003-04 to $325 billion today and growing.

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