Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks to media in Ottawa, on Feb. 7, 2023.BLAIR GABLE/Reuters
Ontario Premier Doug Ford came into office five years ago on a crusade against renewable power. He pinned blame for rising power prices on “terrible, terrible wind turbines.” Among a series of anti-green initiatives, he scrapped hundreds of contracts for clean power.
But Mr. Ford has watched the business world move past his own beliefs. What he previously felt was a political winner quickly morphed into an out-of-date idea that potentially undermined economic development. He started to turn away from his conviction that renewable power was economically ruinous.
In December, Mr. Ford’s Progressive Conservatives completed their 180-degree turn. The Premier has not transformed into a green activist but his government is planning to sign deals for 5,000 megawatts of renewable power over the next five years – which could roughly double the province’s supply of wind and solar power.
Rapidly increasing renewable power capacity in Canada and around the world is central to strategies to slash greenhouse gas emissions and electrify sectors such as transportation and home heating. The federal government has been at the fore, with its proposed clean electricity rules to eliminate most fossil fuels from power generation by 2035. Yet provinces and utilities have been slow to move.
That’s beginning to change. Hydro-Québec in November announced a $100-billion plan to expand its power grid, including a tripling of wind. It’s a climate plan, yes – half of the energy Quebec uses is from fossil fuels – but it’s also an economic plan. Hydro-Québec said clean power is a “defining factor for global competitiveness.” Mr. Ford, who considers himself a businessman at heart, started to realize this when business leaders told him so.
Unburdened by his past beliefs, Mr. Ford’s government last spring acknowledged “access to clean energy is a critical input for businesses making investment decisions.”
The province’s big move last year was in nuclear power but it still seemed to eschew wind and solar, even as Ontario was also making an early splash in battery storage, of which there could be as much as 3,000 megawatts ready by 2028. With the latest commitment to renewable power, Ontario is pushing ahead on multiple fronts, each pillar working together.
One important piece of the plan is businesses’ ambitions to advertise themselves as net zero. In Alberta, before it halted renewable power development last summer, more than $5-billion of corporate money since 2019 helped turn Canada’s fossil-fuel province into the country’s renewable power leader. Amazon helped bankroll the country’s largest solar farm. Ontario is designing a system for corporate power purchase agreements of renewable power.
A key challenge is local opposition. Just like not-in-my-backyard forces have long stymied new housing in cities, opposition to proposed power projects is problematic – and turbocharged by Mr. Ford from his early days as Premier when he handed local councils a veto. That was a mistake. Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator has noted a “growing incidence of unwilling hosts.”
Mr. Ford’s pivot is only half complete. He’s dropped his own opposition. Now, he can step up and be the salesman. His previous skepticism works as an asset to help sell the new reality of clean power, where electricity from wind and solar promises to be cheaper than current rates. Surveys show clean power is a widely popular climate policy.
And it works, where it’s been deployed at scale. In 2023, the industrial powerhouse of Germany generated more than half its electricity from renewables, led by offshore wind and solar.
Ontario still puts too much focus on the need for natural gas, to provide power during periods of high demand. Its initial steps back into renewables are welcome but much more is possible. While the Canada Energy Regulator sees Ontario doubling its nuclear capacity, it predicts wind power could rise 12-fold and provide half the province’s power by 2050, citing “low capital and operating costs.”
Mr. Ford’s shift on wind and solar may be a surprise but he joins a growing parade. Renewable power, globally, is expected to double this decade. At the United Nations climate meeting in December, countries pledged to step up the pace to triple renewable power.
Ontario is starting to make the right moves. Mr. Ford went from blocking to backing – because it makes economic sense.