Ontario Increases Taxes, Subsidises Industry and Increases Energy Costs

If the headline here sounds surprising, it is because Ontario calls what they are doing something else. Its part of their strategy to go green - promote and encourage energy efficiency, increase green energy development and consumption and reduce CO2 emissions.

What are they doing? Here is the story:

1. Every house seller must have an energy audit of their home. A tax of $150 - $300 depending on the size of the home. Sellers do not have to do anything about the findings, but the assumption is that house buyers will demand action before they buy.

2. Ontario is enabling the growth of the green energy sector by providing subsided pricing regimes for green energy (solar, wind etc) and will so invest in the energy grid to make this possible, This is about picking a winner (or not), making it a regulated requirement and then using tax payers money to make the use of this suoer expensive stuff possible.

3. Eventually, the government will remove the subsidies and then energy bills will go up to about x4 the current cost of power in Ontario - as is thr case in Spain and Germany, which Ontario says it wishes to emulate.

4. To make wind power viable, more coal fired power plants will be need to provide the guarantee of power flow from these sources - notoriously unreliable.

So this is the plan. All masked in saving the planet, going green and creating new jobs....right.