Ford’s Tories are tangled in boondoggles
We’ve seen this scandal before. It starts out sounding small, gets big and then bigger, until it becomes a boondoggle.
Remember those gas plants? With an election looming, Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals closed a couple to cut their losses — and cut corners to conceal the truth.
But the bills kept climbing, and we all paid a steep price.
By contrast, Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives promised to do the right thing in power. Campaigning to be premier, Doug Ford bemoaned past scandals and boasted he’d make Ontario “open for business.”
Now, history is repeating itself. Once again, the coverup is worse than the cancellation.
Like the Liberals before them, Ford’s Tories in power have pulled the plug on costly energy facilities — not gas-fired power plants this time, but renewable energy projects. The new premier tried to have his cake and eat it, too — promising to make Ontario attractive to foreign investors while ripping up signed contracts at minimal cost.
Turns out the Tories have quietly allocated $231 million to cancel hundreds of renewable energy contracts. They promised it could be done painlessly, affordably and transparently — but have delivered none of the above.
Now it falls to the mastermind of the Progressive Conservative blueprint, Energy Minister Greg Rickford, to defend the indefensible, explain the inexplicable and excuse the inexcusable. Except he can’t, because he won’t come clean.
Despite his vow to do it at minimal cost, Rickford’s ministry has to pay up — hence the coverup to avoid fessing up. To throw critics off the scent, the Tories sneakily buried it in budgetary figures under the guise of “other transactions.”
Only when asked by the opposition New Democrats, aided by the sleuths at the legislative library’s research service, did the PC government clarify the figure: $231 million “to wind down renewable energy contracts while ensuring that the costs of terminating those costs are not borne by electricity consumers.”
Nothing to see here, argued Rickford, who has spent the past year huffing and puffing about a federally imposed carbon levy aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. His PC government has budgeted $30 million to oppose the measure, ordering gas stations to affix propaganda stickers to their pumps in the interests of “transparency,” falsely claiming that “the federal carbon tax will cost you” even though it is rebated at tax time.
Transparency, like beauty, is in the eye of the obfuscator. And the bloviator.
In one of his more memorable rhetorical lapses, Rickford let it be known that the propaganda ploy would “stick it to the Liberals.” When asked Wednesday if he would consider putting stickers on electricity bills explaining that his government had wasted so much money cancelling contracts, the minister demurred. But no amount of bamboozling over this boondoggle will rescue Rickford from a trap of his own making, for hubris is a heavy burden to bear.
At a time when the public is increasingly sensitive to its carbon footprint, this government is squandering taxpayers’ money to rip up renewable energy contracts.
Amid the premier’s claims that Ontario is attracting foreign investment, his government is trampling on private property rights — not just for those who invest in renewables, but the owners of gas stations who face stiff fines if they don’t apply propaganda stickers to their pumps.
In the same vein, our premier has tried to milk the beer industry for every drop. Ford’s bumper sticker slogans have produced an ample supply of cheap rhetoric at high cost — from his promise of buck-abeer (which fizzled when brewers couldn’t deliver), to beer in corner stores (which violates a signed contract with major brewers and the Beer Store).
Like the cancellation of renewable energy contracts, the threat to rip up a formal agreement with the brewers only undermines Ford’s claim that Ontario is “open for business.” Quite apart from the cost in lost investment, and the reputational damage to our brand, it risks another billion-dollar boondoggle.
The Tories are backing down, belatedly, on beer. Ford’s new finance minister, Rod Phillips, has put on hold last summer’s confiscatory legislation that exposed Ontario to litigation under the confrontational approach of his predecessor, Vic Fedeli.
Like Rickford at the energy ministry, Fedeli aimed to please the premier by telling him what he wanted to hear. Ford finally got the message that their approach wasn’t working, and fired Fedeli.
Phillips knows that picking a pointless fight over corner store beer is best avoided. But on renewable energy, Rickford hasn’t received the memo, and it’s probably too late for the Tories to undo the damage.
All they can aim for is damage control, which requires transparency and humility. Not hubris and bravado, nor burying the numbers while downplaying the true costs.
Remember the gas plants? It’s not just the cancellation, it’s the coverup.
It falls to Energy Minister Greg Rickford, to defend the indefensible, explain the inexplicable and excuse the inexcusable. Except he can’t, because he won’t come clean.