WHY NOW IS THE RIGHT TIME TO LIFT ONTARIO's PRICE CAP
An Open Letter to Premier Ernie Eves

Dear Sir,

As you know, Freedom Party of Ontario has at all times opposed the 4.3 cent electricity price cap that was imposed last December by your government (with the assistance of Mr. McGuinty's Liberals). Accordingly, I read with great disappointment your press secretary's clarification that you are not considering the elimination of the 4.3 cent cap, as you suggested earlier on Monday.

Though your term of office is nearing expiration, I make this final pitch to you in the hopes that you will reverse your decision and eliminate the price cap as soon as humanly possible.

First, I ask you to keep in mind that we are not experiencing an energy shortage. Rather, we are experiencing a suddenly decreased availability of centrally generated electricity. The sun continues to shine, the wind to blow, and the water to flow. The earth continues to hold riches of coal, oil and gas. And, without waiting for an insufficiency of nuclear power, mankind has already invented a host of tools that can be used to harness the energy in these resources for our productive uses. Were we never to build another coal, gas, or nuclear plant - indeed, were Ontario to allow every power line in Ontario to fall to the ground in disrepair, as we seem currently to be doing - we could nonetheless easily harness an almost unlimited supply of energy to heat and cool our homes, and to power up our electronics, etc..

Second, I would remind you of the IMO's March 2003 10-Year Outlook. It explained that the grid is increasingly in need of immediate additions of resource if people are going to increase their use of electricity supplied via the grid. Unless more electricity is generated and fed into the grid, the gap between supply and demand for grid-supplied electricity will continue to widen. Indeed, once the Lakeview plant is closed in April of 2005, we will experience another jarring decrease in grid-supplied electricity.

Third, given that you have recently referred to the Liberals and NDP as "socialistic", I would ask you to consider that rationing is just one of two main methods to distribute a limited resource: the socialist's method. In case you are wondering, the other, capitalist method is to allow the resource to follow the money: prices are allowed to change in accordance with supply and demand, and everyone pays for what they get, and only for what they get. Accordingly, a premier can either be disliked for cutting power even to people who are using hardly any, or he can be disliked by big-time power consumers for taking away daddy's credit card.

I recommend to you the capitalist method: eliminating, as soon as humanly possible, the 4.3 cent price cap. Here are a few reasons why:

• restoring personal financial responsibility for the cost of ones consumption will cause people very quickly take steps to use as little grid-supplied electricity as possible.
  
  
• Without a price cap, there will be no need for rolling black-outs, and no need to encourage or threaten people to use less electricity. There is always enough of a limited resource to supply those who are willing to pay the market price for it.
  
  
• After eliminating the price cap, people will immediately seek other sources of electricity, all of which will suddenly become much more price-competitive with grid-supplied electricity. Many people will consider turning to environmentally-friendly renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.
  
  
• For many, reliance on transmission and distribution lines will be reduced and, for some, it will be eliminated. The market will experience some relief from the Commanding Heights view of centrally planned, government-supplied and controlled electricity distribution.
  
  
• You might even regain some shred of trustworthiness amongst power generation investors (though, I wouldn't hold my breath were I you).

I must impress upon you my sentiment that the elimination of the price cap is not simply right for the long term. Capitalism - the removal of the price cap - is, perhaps more importantly, the proper, effective, and responsible way to manage the current crisis.

Finally, whereas I do not share the view (yet) that you are in any way responsible for the power outage last Thursday, I must state that you have, most certainly, made the resulting power crisis much more difficult for everyone to handle, and you have contributed on an immense scale to the losses now being suffered by all. Specifically, had you not imposed the price cap last December, companies and individuals in Ontario would already have taken many of the steps that now need to be taken to deal with reduced grid-supplied electricity. More wind turbines and solar panels would already have been installed. More new power power generation developments would be underway. Numerous conservation technologies would have been purchased and installed by Ontarians, et cetera. Having chosen socialism for political gain - having imposed price controls - you have left us all relatively unprepared and injured, and you have (perhaps fatally) injured your party's prospects in the voting booth.

I conclude by repeating: reverse your decision on the price cap sir. Given your...let's call it "adaptability"...you shouldn't find such a reversal too difficult.

Regards,

Paul McKeever, B.Sc.(Hons), M.A., LL.B.
Leader, Freedom Party of Ontario

The Freedom Party of Ontario is the only registered political party in Ontario that supports the elimination of the 4.3 cent price cap, the sell-off of OPG generation facilities to numerous competing companies, and the facilitation of net-metering. Its electricity proposals can be found in Freedom Party's election platform, The Right Direction:

https://freedomparty.on.ca/platform.pdf (Adobe .pdf format)

https://freedomparty.on.ca/platform/html/cover.htm (HTML format)

Paul McKeever (who will be running in the riding of Oshawa, against Sid Ryan and Jerry Ouellette) is available to discuss this letter. You can contact him directly at:

***-***-**** (cell)

Freedom Party is expected to run candidates in approximately half of Ontario's ridings in the coming election.

For further information: Paul McKeever, Leader, Freedom Party of Ontario.
Oshawa Office Telephone: 905-721-9772.
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