Wynne signals hydro relief is coming for consumers
Premier Kathleen Wynne is signalling that some kind of relief is coming for electricity ratepayers zapped by soaring hydro bills due to the summer heatwave.

TheStar.com
Sept. 7, 2016
Robert Benzie

Premier Kathleen Wynne is signalling that some kind of relief is coming for electricity ratepayers zapped by soaring hydro bills this hot summer.

Wynne told reporters Wednesday she was getting that message from homeowners and tenants across the province even before the governing Liberals lost Thursday’s Scarborough-Rouge River byelection.

“We heard concerns at the doors in Scarborough-Rouge River, and, quite frankly, those concerns are things that we now have to take to heart and we have to use them to inform our actions going forward,” she said, referring to the victory by Progressive Conservative Raymond Cho.

“One of the things that we heard most consistently was hydro rates. I heard about electricity rates in the north. It is not something that is isolated in one riding in Toronto. This is a concern across the province. I recognize that.”

Wynne said she has instructed Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault, who was appointed in June, to examine “ways to help people bear the costs in their day-to-day lives.”

“It’s an urgent issue for the minister of energy,” the premier said, admitting there has been “a cost associated with” government investments in electricity infrastructure that are being borne by ratepayers.

“We have had to make upgrades. We had to make the investments that we made to have a reliable energy system, electricity system in this province,” she said.

“We understand that we need to take that into account and come up with increasing or further mitigations. We haven’t done enough . . . there’s more that we have to do,” said Wynne, who did not elaborate on the details.

Beyond rebates to consumers paid from the provincial treasury, it is unclear what Queen’s Park can do to offset bills that will be even larger than expected due to the reliance on air-conditioners during a scorching summer.

The independent Ontario Energy Board sets electricity rates, not the government, and the Liberals maintain that the sale of most of Hydro One to fund transportation infrastructure won’t affect bills.

In fact, the government has argued a privatized transmission utility might be a more efficient company that could pass on savings to consumers, although both the Tories and the New Democrats strongly dispute that.

The Liberals point out that Thibeault, a former NDP MP and Sudbury United Way official, is well-versed on the concerns of northerners and low-income Ontarians.

But the rookie cabinet minister will have his work cut out for him devising some kind of “mitigation” scheme to help the vast swath of ratepayers alarmed by the size of their bills.

The means-tested Ontario Electricity Support Program already provides monthly credits ranging from $30 to $75 depending upon location and the number of people in the home.

Families with after-tax household incomes of $52,000 or less can apply for the OESP.

Under former premier Dalton McGuinty, the Liberals in 2010 instituted the Ontario Clean Energy Benefit, a 10 per cent discount on hydro bills to compensate for the cost of wind and solar power subsidies.

That costly five-year program, while politically successful because it helped McGuinty win the 2011 election, was criticized by conservationists because the more energy a consumer used the more he or she saved.