As even the carpet baggers now exploiting the Green Energy Act subsidies are now publicly warning, the subsidies can’t last. But will McGuinty’s Green Energy Act die a death of a thousand cuts or will it die in a constitutional fireball?
As discussed previously on this blog and in one of my Youtube videos, McGuinty included in his cherished Green Energy Act — engineered to build his legacy ““ a vicious attack on our most important Parliamentary right, the requirement that our elected representatives must vote in all government spending. How could the Ontario Public Service’s sharp lawyers have allowed this provision, offensive to the Magna Carta Libertatum of 1215, the very foundation of our society, to remain in the legislation?
The story of how this rot started illustrates the vapid core of McGuinty’s imperious energy schemes for Ontario.
The federal government developed a program to subsidize home energy audits. Jealous that his image as the great green crusader might be overshadowed in this area by Prime Minister Harper, McGuinty sent the Ontario Power Authority to negotiate a matching program with Ottawa. The OPA dutifully committed to spend $320 million on home energy audits in 2009 and 2010, paralleling the federal program. Upon their return from Ottawa however, the economic tide had turned. With markets plummeting, unemployment rising, and the Liberal deficit making former NDP Premier Bob Rae look fiscally prudent, Treasury Board drifted off the green-at-all-cost message and turned thumbs down on the $320 million already committed. In a panicked search of an alternative source of funds, the McGuinty team decided to slip a taxation clause into the Green Energy Act. Cowering government lawyers apparently quailed at the prospect of confronting McGuinty’s energetic rottweiler, George Smitherman, although I can’t confirm the details of this element of the story yet. The law passed, barely scratched by the weak Opposition.
Although McGuinty’s original purpose in circumventing the Legislature was to cover the committed home energy audit costs, if the government gets away with its plan, there will be no limit on what slush funds could metastasize from a hidden tax on energy.
McGuinty had planned to dump most of the home energy audit costs onto natural gas bills, until that plan recently hit a reinforced concrete wall.
The Ontario Court of Appeal, in its recent decision in the Toronto Hydro case, reiterated the obligations of the utilities to protect the interests of their consumers. Although one might hope that Ontario’s electric utilities might place a few stones of their own in the path of McGuinty’s taxing juggernaut, none of them are lifting a finger in opposition.
Neither the provincial government’s home audit program’s legal nor its funding gaps interrupted its launch. Ontario homeowners can sign up today with the OPA’s Power Pledge program. Your neighbours as well as schools, hospitals, businesses, and industries will pay the cost of your home energy audit, buried in their power bills. With the OPA’s plan, you can “earn” 20 Air Miles Reward Miles for yourself, and, in addition, “earn” 10 Air Miles Reward Miles for World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Canada. Those Air Miles will help fuel Gerald Butts, former Principal Secretary to Premier McGuinty, and now President and CEO of WWF Canada, a vocal supporter of the Green Energy Act.
Alternatively, Ontarians who value their constitutional rights can contact the Consumer Council of Canada to support their brave and principled constitutional challenge of McGuinty’s ugly, imperial taxation powers. Details of the challenge are here. The Consumer Council of Canada has excellent legal representation but you can help in other ways. Be creative and generous.
Great work! This is some excellent investigative reporting. The deeper one digs, the uglier this gets. I am disappointed that so many people in the pertinent agencies are willing to aid and abet this plan. Sooner or later, economic reality will rear its ugly head, as is now happening in Spain, and the consequences of this profligacy will have to be faced.
As usual Tom’s great work tells it like it is – and it isn’t pretty.
Lynne points out the consequences of economic reality that is
happening in Spain and across Europe yet McGuinty insists on taking Ontario down the same path.
Will, as Tom suggests the GEA die a death of a thousand cuts or will it die in a constitutional fireball — personally I don’t care as long as it dies and the sooner the better for Ontario.
It’s a sad day when hard working honest people in Ontario have to resort to the courts to protect them from the very Politicians who they elect and pay to represent THEIR interests in day to day operations and the handling of their valuable tax dollars!
Perhaps the time has come to “secede” from the Province of Ontario!
I’m still trying to figure out how people can think ‘Air Miles’ are um….’green’. That little scheme is a nice tidy representation of the entire Green Energy Act. One big toxic lie played on the residents of Ontario.
Where do I sign a petition to SECEDE??? Surely all the members of every group that is exposing McGuinty’s FAKE Green Energy will sign it and others will follow on principle. We can never again allow a government body to use our own money to hornswoggle us. We refuse to become a Corporate State. A corporate take over of our rural lands has been facilitated by the Liberal Majority Government under Fuhuer Dalton McGuinty. He must be stopped at all costs. I say Secede!