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In the month leading up to the campaign kickoff, Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Doug Ford’s government announced $17.8 billion in total funding for various energy projects.
The cash is for the refurbishment of existing hydro and nuclear assets, a pumped hydro project, and a massive energy efficiency program. That towering sum doesn’t include whatever a new nuclear plant proposed near Port Hope would cost, or the cost to connect roads to the emerging Ring of Fire mining projects.
The government has announced significant funding for other non-energy-related projects, including $975 million for Toronto Harbourfront revitalization and $1.3 billion for schools, but nonetheless, it’s clear that Ford’s reelection strategy revolves around strengthening Ontario’s economy.
“We need to do everything possible to keep our economy competitive,” he said Wednesday at his campaign launch, from behind a podium branded “Protect Ontario,” in Windsor at the Canada-U.S. border.
At the core of competitiveness is cheap electricity because it is a vital input cost for businesses. That may help explain why in the weeks leading up to the snap election call, Ford’s government has been on a tear, announcing significant funding for energy projects, and plans to spend even more.
Adam Harmes, an associate professor of political science at Western University, told Canada’s National Observer that the Ford government appears to have announced so much funding in a bid to “put things in their window” ahead of the election. Ford has capitalized on a perfect storm that is widely expected to give the Progressive Conservatives an electoral edge, he said.
Harmes said the factors feeding Ford’s decision would be:
- A federal election this year, which polls suggest would lead to a Conservative government, which could complicate Ford’s reelection chances if Pierre Poilievre wins (conventional wisdom being that voters often take out frustration with a governing party at the federal level against provincial parties of the same stripe);
- A forthcoming report investigating the Greenbelt scandal. Opposition parties have recently called on the RCMP to provide updates;
- The threat of U.S. tariffs.
Harmes doesn’t think these energy announcements have come out of nowhere.
“Never waste a good crisis,” Harmes said. “For the last eight months, it's become obvious he's just looking for a reason, and Trump provided a useful reason. All these energy policies they're doing have been in the works, and now they get to slightly reframe them in terms of contributing to this response to Trump.”
Harmes added that with the federal Liberals in their own leadership race, the near-daily chaos out of the Trump administration and a very short election period, opposition parties will likely struggle to get media attention that could counter the narrative Ford is advancing.
“It just lines up really well for Ford,” he said. “Unless the Liberals and NDP have some sort of opposition to whatever Ford is doing, he's using [energy] as one more issue he can bring in to talk about dealing with Trump and the tariffs.”
Behind the sheer costs announced in recent weeks are the megawatts of power the province is looking to add to its grid in a bid to transform Ontario into an energy superpower. According to government estimates, the funding announced in January could add 3,830 megawatts to the grid, while the new nuclear plant, if built, could add an additional 10,000 megawatts — enough to power more than 10 million homes.
In October, the Ontario government made this goal of becoming an energy superpower explicit in its energy strategy. The strategy describes demand for electricity surging in the coming decades and warns that failing to keep up with demand will erode the province’s economic competitiveness.
“This is our choice: A pro-growth agenda that takes an all-of-the-above approach to energy planning, including nuclear, hydroelectricity, energy storage, natural gas, hydrogen and renewables, and other fuels, rather than ideological dogma that offers false choices and burdens hardworking people and businesses with a costly and unnecessary carbon tax,” wrote Ontario Minister of Energy and Electrification Stephen Lecce in the strategy document.
Ontario is choosing a high-risk and inefficient option to generate electricity, warns Mark Winfield, chair of York University’s Sustainable Energy Initiative, who is quick to pour cold water on Lecce’s vision for the province. He criticized the strategy for having no meaningful external oversight or review, and beyond the “death bed conversion on efficiency,” the province isn’t putting any real focus on renewable energy or improving electricity trade with Quebec, which could provide more cost-effective and cleaner options than what Ontario is pursuing.
“When you look at it, the focus is overwhelmingly on nuclear, with a large and growing dose of gas on the side. And the rest I think is mostly just window dressing,” he said. “It is not any kind of coherent strategy either to decarbonize the province's energy or indeed to control costs.”
A report from the Ontario Clean Air Alliance found electricity generated by a new nuclear reactor would be far more expensive than renewable options, costing 3.6 times more than onshore wind, three times more than solar, and 1.7 times more than offshore wind. The report also underscored the province’s abundant renewable energy potential, noting that Great Lakes wind power alone could provide more than enough electricity to meet the province’s energy needs.
For Winfield, Ontario planning new nuclear megaprojects ignores climate science, which says greenhouse gas emissions must be rapidly phased out. New nuclear plants would take many years to build, rendering them irrelevant from both a near-term emission reduction perspective and dealing with Trump. It also ignores the province’s catastrophic history with nuclear energy, he said.
“The last time we went on a nuclear building spree, we ended up with a bankrupted utility,” he said, referring to Ontario Hydro, the predecessor of Ontario Power Generation that had to be financially rescued by offloading $20.9 billion of mostly nuclear-related debt onto ratepayers.
“Poor maintenance and operating practices led to the near-overnight shutdown of the province’s seven oldest reactors in 1997, leading to a dramatic rise in the role of coal-fired generation and its associated emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and smog precursors,” Winfield wrote in an article published by Policy Options in October. “The refurbishment of the ‘laid-up’ reactors themselves went badly. Two ended in write-offs, and the others ran billions over budget and years behind schedule, accounting for a large portion of the near doubling of electricity rates in the province between the mid-2000s and 2020.”
Given other provinces’ recent experiences with major energy megaprojects’ costs spiralling out of control (from Muskrat Falls in Newfoundland and Labrador to British Columbia’s Site C), governments should be careful when embarking on major projects, he said.
“Ontario is taking a leap off a cliff… and the rest of the world more or less is waiting to see how far we fall,” he said. “And the province hasn't seemed to have shown the slightest hesitancy about proceeding on that pathway.”
John Woodside is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter with Canada's National Observer. LJI is funded by the Government of Canada.