Ontario Premier Doug Ford attends a news conference at the Bramalea GO Station, in Brampton, on May 11, 2023.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
For all the hype at the turn of the century, propelled by the potential of the internet, daily life in Canada’s biggest city was marked by a decidedly older technology.
Every summer, for weeks on end, a hazy smog blotted out the sun in the skies of Toronto. On bright days, humid and hot, the effect was at once apocalyptic yet strangely beautiful. But few gave it much thought. It seemed like a permanent fact of life. It was not.
Burning coal produced electricity – about a quarter of Ontario’s power at the time – and all that dirty smog. In 2003, the Ontario Liberals decided to end coal power. They got it done by 2014. It wasn’t easy or cheap but the foresight has been validated ever since. Locals and visitors can look up for proof: clear skies.
Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives are today in the process of a similar generational decision, making a call on the future of the grid and how new power will be generated. Mr. Ford has an uneven record in office but on electrification he’s choosing, generally, the right track.
Planning an overhaul of a power grid does not often happen and it is among the most difficult and important decisions any governing party can make in office. Mr. Ford, when he won in 2018, made early mistakes. He scrapped contracts for clean power and blamed the high cost of electricity on “terrible, terrible wind turbines.”
Mr. Ford, six years later, is clearly not an ideologue. And this, might we say, philosophical flexibility has allowed his government to think more broadly about Ontario’s power potential. Last January, this space detailed Mr. Ford’s warming to clean power. The province had already made its nuclear ambitions clear. It was also, somewhat, embracing renewable energy such as wind and solar and, importantly, grid-scale battery storage. Mr. Ford saw the business case change – rising demand for clean power – and his thinking evolved.
The provincial strategy has since come into clearer focus. Two weeks ago, Ontario made its “pressing case for more power.” Electrification is the future of all economies, driven by the market, technology and the need to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Ontario, in typical Doug Ford fashion, is all-in. Billed as an “all-of-the-above approach,” the province calls it a “pro-growth agenda to reduce costs and provincewide emissions.”
Legislation tabled Oct. 23 includes goals of long-term planning and specifics such as electric vehicle charging. A detailed energy resource plan is set for next year.
The core of power strategy – and the biggest financial risk – is a doubling down on nuclear power. In 2022, nuclear produced about half of the province’s electricity. The challenge is cost but one big project, the refurbishment of Darlington station, is on budget, at least as of last year. There’s also technology risk, as Ontario pioneers small modular reactors.
While Ontario has shifted since Mr. Ford’s early days, the province needs to become more open to wind and solar power. Renewables, supported by batteries, are seen by many experts as the future. The Canada Energy Regulator cites “low capital and operating costs.”
In the Ontario of 2050, the CER foresees a province where almost half the power is generated by wind. Nuclear is estimated at a third of the total. But even with a lower share, the CER forecasts a doubling of nuclear power in the province, to support mass electrification.
Ontario’s pledge of all of the above has to be more than words. In its vision for affordable energy two weeks ago, solar and wind are mentioned three times each. The first mention is negative, about intermittency. Natural gas is cited 35 times. Nuclear is trumpeted 60 times.
If Mr. Ford truly believes in affordable energy, an outsized bet on nuclear is financially risky.
Beyond the type of clean power, there’s the climate payoff. Toronto’s skies are smog free – and Ontario’s emissions as of 2022 were down 23 per cent since 2005, largely because of eliminating coal power. The political choice this decade to rely on more natural gas is reasonable – as long as there is a firm plan to get off fossil fuels as soon as possible thereafter. That means wind, solar and batteries, alongside nuclear, combined with EVs on the roads and heat pumps in homes.
Mr. Ford is an unlikely leader for the clean power revolution, given his initial disdain for green electricity. But he’s now got the main idea right. The future is electric, and it’ll produce a major economic payoff.