Thank you.
My lead question goes to the Honourable Dan McTeague.
Mr. McTeague, here in Ontario the government, roughly 10 years ago, promised that we would create a brand new industry of wind power and solar panels to replace traditional sources of energy. To do that, they created something called the feed-in tariff, which paid the wholesale vendors of this electricity 90¢ a kilowatt hour for solar and 20¢ a kilowatt hour for wind, even though the market price for electricity in the province was about 3¢ or 4¢. In other words, we were paying about 20 times what the electricity was worth.
Now, as a result of locking in these exorbitant contracts for 25 years, the average Ontarian opens their power bill and finds that about 75% of it is not for electricity at all. It's for what's called the global adjustment, which is the subsidy we're paying for wind and solar. What have been the consequences of that?
One, we've doubled electricity prices in Ontario.
Two, we have driven people into poverty. According to the Ontario Association of Food Banks, there is something in Ontario called energy poverty, whereby people are walking in and asking for food because they can't afford to feed themselves and pay the newly doubled electricity rates.
Three, it has increased emissions, because instead of relying on zero-emission nuclear and hydro, we have ended up having to bring in more natural gas-powered electricity in order to provide base load for the intermittence of wind and solar.
Finally, we have driven many of our manufacturing jobs out of the province, because, frankly, companies can't afford to compete by running their factories on electricity that is among the highest cost in North America.
Mr. McTeague, you are a former Liberal MP. Do you worry that the monstrous new subsidies that the current government and a whole series of activists and self-serving corporate interests are advocating for will similarly harm the environment, drive up poverty and increase inequality?