Ontario Energy Minister Todd Smith last week put out the call for 2,000 megawatts -- about five per cent of all generation in the province -- of non-emitting power generation, including wind, solar, hydro and bioenergy.
And this is just the first step, Smith said, with an additional 3,000 megawatts of renewable energy to follow in what he called a “regular cadence” of new generation.
So, saints be praised. The premier was blind, but now he sees.
The step was “definitely overdue,” Evan Pivnick, program manager at Clean Energy Canada, told the Star’s Marco Chown Oved. “With the cost reductions we’ve seen in renewables, there’s never been a time when the business case for these stands up more so than today.”
Shortly after taking office in 2018, Ford railed against renewables as expensive and unnecessary, halting construction of such projects and cancelling partially built projects.
But the universe has a way of providing as many opportunities as necessary to learn the lessons we must.
Climate change has shown anyone open to the imperative of fact that environmentalism isn’t mere virtue signaling by the urban intelligentsia, but a way to improve health, wealth and opportunity for everyone.
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The premier has apparently come to the belated realization that green solutions are job-growth engines, bringing investment and prosperity to small, rural communities.
So almost six years on, while reliance on gas plants increasaed, a wasted half-decade in the large task of addressing climate change, Ford has accepted what the knowledgeable have been saying loud, clear and persuasively for some considerable time.
His decision is welcome, even if his reversal raises inevitable questions about where the province might be had the premier’s government allowed the previous projects to proceed.
There is also the inconvenient truth, again, of squandered revenue by a premier who regularly promises to watch every penny.
It will be intriguing to see whether green energy backers receive anything like the lavish apology for their troubles that developers recently got from cabinet minister Paul Calandra over the government’s reversal on the Greenbelt.
The political question arises as to just how many reversals it will take before the conclusion is that Ford’s judgment is profoundly wanting, that rather than demonstrating pragmatism or adaptation to shifting circumstances he simply has a talent for getting things wrong.
On the Greenbelt, which saw development plans and massive changes to municipal boundaries scrapped, he recently took the art of reversing field to a new level.
He had pledged (2018) to protect the Greenbelt, then he undertook (2022) to develop it, then he vowed (2023) to protect it again.
“I made a promise to you that I wouldn’t touch the Greenbelt,” Ford said after that spin-o-rama. “I broke that promise and for that I’m very, very sorry.”
In all, into his second term as premier, Ford risks developing the brand of a walking weather vane, or a man trapped in a revolving door, spinning and spinning and emerging heaven knows where.
Over his time in office, the premier has already turned in almost as many flips as an Olympic gymnast.
During the COVID-19 crisis, he resisted vaccine passports before implementing a certificate system for gyms, theatres, sports, indoor restaurants and other non-essential venues.
He promised to repeal the previous government’s sex-education curriculum, before introducing a new version that actually built on it.
If credit is due the premier for deciding it’s never too late to do the right thing, he would be well advised to stop governing by exploiting stereotypes and pandering to his base.
He would be wise -- as in the bromide “measure twice, cut once” -- to take the time and do the investigation necessary to get decisions right the first time.
