Ontario's government-made energy catastrophe

...The doubling of electricity prices since 2005 is big politically, but it is just the top-line item on a long list of problems, misconceptions and outright fabrications that lurk within the Liberal government’s decade-long pursuit of radical greenism.

Instead of being a worthy model for other nations and states, the province’s green energy megaproject stands as a cautionary tale. Alberta’s NDP government, also under the spell of green activists, should look twice before following its plan to kill coal and turn green.

For all the costs of going green — estimated by Ontario’s auditor general to total $170 billion over 30 years—none of the alleged economic and social benefits have materialized. Claims by former premier Dalton McGuinty and current leader Kathleen Wynne, repeated in a recent speech from the throne, that closing coal plants dramatically reduced smog and saved $4.4 billion in health care and other costs are demonstrably untrue.

The promise of maybe hundreds of thousands of renewable energy jobs was also a fantasy; today, nobody can say where the jobs are, mainly because few new permanent jobs exist.

Instead of boosting Ontario’s economy and the health of its citizens, the province has created an incoherent electricity industry that many say threatens the viability of key industries....