Natural Resources Committee on May 1st, 2018

[Patrick Bateman]

There are multiple layers to that question.

The decision of how much renewables to have in Ontario was a supply-mix planning exercise undertaken by the then Ontario Power Authority, now the Independent Electricity System Operator. It largely solves for how much energy we need and how much energy we bring in response to that demand. That would be one part of the equation.

The second part of the equation is around the policy decisions that were undertaken in terms of how to bring that—not in terms of quantity, but how to bring it on. A large part of that was through the feed-in tariff programs. There would have been market research undertaken as a parallel to define the levels of pricing needed in order to bring the volume of renewals that were needed.

[Phil McColeman]

Great.

Between the U.S. tax subsidy and our direct federal subsidies to winners and losers within the field of the renewables, which do you prefer?

[Patrick Bateman]

The USITC is incredibly more aggressive in terms of the level of subsidy and response. The response of investors to that is much higher. With respect to the accelerated capital cost allowance, it's important, but it's much less aggressive. Each of the different sectors that we represent would have different opinions, so maybe we could follow up with a response from each of the different sectors. I'm not prepared to speak to that question today.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you very much. To our witnesses, thank you very much for joining us today and for accommodating our schedule a little bit, but we got it done, so we're very grateful. We'll see everybody on Thursday.

The meeting is adjourned.