National Post (National Edition)

ONTARIO’S PERPETUAL MOTION DISASTER ON THE ENERGY FILE

- National Post

called “carbon pollution.”

This is a fake designatio­n, I point out. If carbon dioxide is a pollutant we should all be shut down, but it is a necessary thing in the liturgy of global warming to declare everything and anything in the way of the creed a pollutant. But hydro costs, he must have been pleased to point out, were Ontario’s doing – a provincial affair.

This could have been a seminal moment for Mr. Trudeau, even one of those teachable ones, so beloved by the morally earnest crowd. He could have seen in this woman’s plight one of the real-time, real-life consequenc­es of embracing the green crusade without any hope or care of knowing how it might affect those who were to bear its burdens. their homes, precisely because that same government went full green and put energy costs in a place where people cannot pay to light and heat their homes. The Ontario Green Dream is the world’s first genuine (taxpayer) perpetual motion machine.

This, as may be apprised by the reader, is mortifying to the regular citizen, such as the lady at the town hall. But now to the crown of our tale. Just two days ago, in this same Ontario where “energy poverty” is the phrase d’jour, it was announced that for those green citizens who wish to buy a Tesla all-electric car, or any other high-end save-the-planet roadster, vehicles in the $75,000 to $150,000 bracket, the province is restoring the full $14,000 ecoVirtue subsidy. And as an extra frill, all Tesla tycoons get to ride free in the HOV lanes and wave at the second-hand pickups stalled in the lanes for ordinary folks.

This is a story of almost Dickensian symmetry. The ecoLords who have brought mayhem to Ontario’s electricit­y system and reduced some of its citizens to public tears and weeping, with power being cut off to low-income residents, is hurling $14,000 subsides to those who by definition — those buying $150,000 wonder cars — have no possible need of them.

If the lady who wept to the Prime Minister hears of this, she will no doubt weep again. She can’t pay her light bill, while Tesla Tommy gets a $14,000 cheque.

Oh brave new green world that has such subsidies in it! A world where there are those who get their power cut, or make the bitter choice between food and light, where others saunter to Tesla showrooms and get a $14,000 discount.

Now if you want to call this “carbon pollution” have at it. Meantime in Ottawa, Mr. Trudeau looks out over Ontario and its maddening green gyrations and sees that it is good. Expect more tears.

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