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Public power preferred
By SARAH ELIZABETH BROWN
Monday, October 1, 2007

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Paul Kahnert of the Ontario Electricity Coalition speaks to reporters Monday at the idled Abitibi Consolidated Inc. Fort William Division Mission Mill.

In a telephone poll conducted late last month, most Thunder Bay residents said they think a public power utility would mean cheaper prices and better energy conservation than a private company could provide.
Of the 596 residents surveyed by phone on Sept. 22 and 23, 88 per cent said they think a publicly-owned, non-profit utility would provide lower electricity costs. Eighty-seven per cent thought a public utility would do the best job on energy conservation and protecting the environment over a private, for-profit utility.
Conducted for the Ontario Electricity Coalition, the same poll questions were asked of residents in Ottawa and Windsor with similar results, though Thunder Bay came out slightly higher in favour of a public utility.
“We wanted to show the government that the people of Ontario overwhelmingly want public power,” electricity coalition spokesman Paul Kahnert, a career lineman from Toronto, said Monday.
“This is why the Liberals are privatizing by stealth,” he said. “They never use the word privatization the way the Conservatives did. They talk about requests for proposals, they talk about competition, they talk about electricity market.”
The province‘s power generation system needs to be replaced over the next 20 years, and the Liberal government has said new generation will be private despite promises to keep power publicly-owned, charges Kahnert. He calls it creeping privatization.
“People were promised that deregulation would mean lower hydro rates,” he said. “We‘ve asked the government this at many, many hearings – how can you have lower hydro rates when you add in profits to generators, profits to distributors, profits to retailers, dividends to investors, commissions to commodities brokers and on and on and on.”
Pointing to an energy system plan laid out Aug. 30 by the provincial Liberals, to cost anywhere from $40 billion to well over $100 billion depending on who‘s talking, Kahnert said power needs to be an election topic.
He contends conservation far above plugging in energy-efficient light bulbs is needed.
“Why is there no discussion about a $60-billion plan – more than all new spending in health care and education. We need a debate on that right now.”
Kahnert released the poll numbers in advance of a public meeting hosted in Thunder Bay by his coalition of those against deregulation and privatization of Ontario‘s power.
That meeting starts at 7 p.m. today at the Prince Arthur Hotel.
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