05.12.2011 06:48 AM

Tim Hudak: job killer, cont’d.

Hudak’s antiquated attitude toward energy doesn’t just stand to harm the environment. It will be a colossal blow to this region, which is in the midst of a diversification plan driven by the green energy sector.

Several companies have chosen to locate here thanks to government incentives, and with each new factory comes jobs -direct and indirect -and the opportunity to lead the way in cutting-edge research and development.

That would change in an instant if Hudak were able to fulfil his promise. “It would mean, basically, that we would close our factory and leave,” said Paco Caudet, general manager of Siliken Group, the Spanish manufacturer of solar panels (which, ironically, will host its grand opening Friday in the shadow of this sudden threat).

More here and here and here and here.

19 Comments

  1. wassup says:

    Imagine all the People free to create real, lasting, growing businesses and jobs after the burden of paying “Green Industry” subsidized job killing taxation is lifted from their shoulders.

    Of course these Green Industry gipsies like Samdung will leave. They are not part of our society, they were here for the free tax money McDaddy was/is throwing around.

    • Philip says:

      What about oil & gas industry subsidies to the tune of over $2,000,000,000 per year, courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer? With gas at over $1.41 a liter. You ok with that wassup? FYI use a little spell check every once and awhile. It can’t hurt.

      • Mandy says:

        Philip, you need to lose your starry eyed naivity about the wind industry.

        If you follow the money trail for green energy it all leads to the big oil and gas companies. The biggist investor in wind turbines in Ontario is Suncor. Why you ask, because when the wind doesn’t blow you have to back up the wind turbines with something else. Since the Liberals have shut down all the coal stations, he has built new natural gas generating stations. Guess who supplies the gas? Suncor has already made over one billion in profit this year, probably most of that from Ontario taxpayers.

        TransAlta (the big player in the oilsands) is one of the largest wind developers in Ontario. Wolfe Island, Melancthon, etc.

        • Philip says:

          I don’t have any opinions either way about the wind industry, but thanks for assuming I did. I do however have a great many opinions on my tax dollars going to subsidize any industry which charged me $1.416 a litre to fill my tank up yesterday. Profiteering of the worst sort.

      • wassup says:

        What subsidies? You just made that number up.. Like so many Left Wing “F’d-acts”.

        Which words are spelled wrong Shakespeare?

        On wait, “gip”sies, Sam”dung”, and Mc”Daddy”.

        I can see how a Leftist elitist like you would get confused… It’s called word-coinage and it’s done for humor… ’nuff said.

        • Philip says:

          Well, you could take up the subsidy amount with the Finance Department and Jim Flaherty. The $ 2,000,000,000 subsidy amounts have been recorded in the last four budgets. The reports are even on the Finance Department website, if you care to look. At the end of the day this is a hypocracy you have square with yourself.
          If that passes for humour in your part of the world, well I’m sure I’m not the only one confused.

        • Jon A says:

          “It’s called word-coinage and it’s done for humor.”

          “gip”sies

          Sam”dung”

          Mc”Daddy”

          No. Stop. My sides. You’re the next Colbert.

  2. VH says:

    Warren, there’s two sides to this issue and this may play out differently than you hope.
    There are at two negatives for McGuinty:

    1) the deal is “secret” as it were. If the deal is so great why is the deal secret many voters will ask. 407 redux.
    2) if the only reason a company is here is because of tax breaks and free money then see through the ruse of “creating jobs”. The rejoinder is “at what cost”?

    Also, if companies come just for the tax breaks then the Premier is advocating a race to the bottom economy that will end up with us looking like Alabama: low tax, low wages, low level of public services and correspondingly low level of life enjoyment. How many Canadians move to Alabama each year?

  3. Hugh Whalen says:

    Hmmm … buy electricity at say around $0.80/kwh or maybe half that with the new rates (which you could buy for $0.04/kwh on the open market) and sell it to people for about $0.10/kwh.

    Buy high, sell low -the way to prosperity as envisioned by the Liberal Party.

    Wow.

    Hugh

  4. Michael S says:

    Good timing Timmy: Japan has announced that it will build a program remarkably similar to Ontaro’s.

  5. Phil in London says:

    Why wouldn’t these companies choose to locate here for Green energy production. It’s like inviting a rapist to a school for wayward girls and telling them the nuns are takign some time off.

    These jobs that allow the companies to sell at 80 cents a product that is going to be sold at 8 cents is not a job creation strategy it is a tragedy waiting to be put to rest.

    McGoo and company don’t know a thing about good management whether it be in education, health care or energy they just pretend to be green and than push off the cost down the road to the only person who is going to pay, me the taxpayer.

    Good thing ole Mike had the knife out for 8 years previous or we’d already be bankrupt with this clown.

  6. Mike London says:

    I’ve said on this forum and others, that Tim Hudak strikes me as a well-educated yet dumb man. With this story, that thought appears to be true. Seriously, what is this guy thinking? The whole world is thinking about ways to produce green energy and there’s going to be a lot of money to be made in green industries. So much for “pro-growth” conservatism.

  7. cgh says:

    So just going through the numbers, that’s 18,500 jobs created by a $7 billion contract. That works out to a subsidy of $378,000 per job created. And how long will it take for those 18,500 jobs to return the value of the subsidy to the Ontario economy? Short answer is never. Not when it’s for solar panels at 80 cents/kWh. Phil, they won’t locate here because Canada can’t match the cost of production in China. This is happening all over the renewable industry. Last year, Vesta, the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer, laid off more than 20 per cent of its world wide workforce for reasons of declining sales and collapse of competitive advantage to China. Simply by the economic numbers, demolishing the Green Energy Act and the ancilliary special supply contracts is the one good thing that could come from a change in administration.

    And all of this comes in addition to the fact that the much higher costs for renewable electricity will make costs higher for Ontario’s manufacturing sector and further restrict productivity growth in which Canada and Ontario already lag badly.

    No, Mike in London, the world isn’t thinking about green energy. They’re only talking about it for appearances. China is selling virtually all of its component production overseas to the dupes that want it. Denmark terminated its feed in tariff two years ago, replacing it with green energy certificates. Which are now worthless with the collapse of the EU emission trading market. Such things are worthless in North America as well, given the collapse and disappearance of the Chicago carbon trading exchange last year. Chicago’s last quoted price for carbon credits was 5 cents a ton before it was closed.

    • Patrick Hamilton says:

      Beg to differ, cgh….http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2010.05-environment-the-new-grand-tour/ This article was published in May of last year……

      • cgh says:

        Read through it carefully. People there dig their own potatoes and collect their own eggs. Why in the 21st century would we want to go back to 16th century subsistence farming? Do you imagine that this is remotely possible for more than a trivial fraction of Germany’s population, let alone that of the world? More to the point, Europe is littered with special projects such as this. Do kindly notice that there are no numbers in this article indicating the cost and rate of return of their solar paradise.

        It’s just another Potemkin Village.

        • Patrick Hamilton says:

          The potatoes and eggs are there as an adjunct, to connect people, especially children, to their environment, and make them realize those products dont simply appear on supermarket shelves, pristine, and encased in plastic and styrofoam…..
          Do you really think they would produce enough for the whole community?…hardly, and it is naive to think so…..

          And perhaps you didnt read the article far enough, but did you not read the bit where the Reichstag produces more energy than it consumes……or the German couple once having paid for their solar units, can look at a number of years of pure profit?….YOU obviously didnt read into the article to see the cost and rate of return on their investment….

          But why waste my breath on you “earth first, we can mine the other planets later” types…

          Dinosaurs and Luddites all.

          I hope Hudak and all the othe Harris neo-cons get their asses kicked…..

          • Patrick Hamilton says:

            For those more enlightened amongst us….”All told, Hermann Scheer’s ambitious policy innovation has converted 15 percent of Germany’s electricity grid to renewable power, and created a quarter of a million jobs just since the turn of the century. One study claims that by 2020, the German clean technology sector will be bigger than the automobile industry in the land of BMW, Porsche, Mercedes, and Volkswagen. And more than that, Scheer’s policy has the fervent support of hundreds of thousands of German homeowners who operate their own little rooftop power plants. You could see them from the train, particularly in the sun-kissed southwest, where the German villagescape of my memory has been given a wholesale photovoltaic overlay — a crazy carpet of glinting silicon and glass tidily laid across seemingly every other roof, in as distinct a sign of historical moment as the steeples of medieval churches.

            At its very best, the feed-in tariff’s transformation of the German home may be the most quietly awesome sight on the whole New Grand Tour. And probably the best place to witness it — but of course — is Vauban, Freiburg’s sainted new suburb. Across the avenue from the redeveloped military base that forms Vauban proper sits Solarsiedlung, an orderly community of fifty townhouses, each of which produces more energy than it consumes over the course of a year. I’d first spoken to its architect, a visionary by the name of Rolf Disch, several years before, but I’d always wanted more intimate confirmation of the miracle of the Solarsiedlung. I was introduced on this visit to a couple who lived in one of the homes. After a half-hour of pleasantries, I asked to see their energy bills. They laid them out for me on their dining table with just a trace of bemusement.

            In 2008, Harald Müller and Barbara Braun paid €398.69 (about $560) for their electricity consumption and €332.81 for their heat consumption. The same year, they were paid €3,750.29 for the electricity produced by the solar panels on their roof. Their net revenue totalled €3,018.79. They estimate that they’re still a few years from fully paying off their household power plant, but by 2012 or so they’ll be looking at more than a decade of pure profit.

            This is how a feed-in tariff works: it turns an ordinary house into an engine that generates over four thousand Canadian dollars a year in profit. Surely there can’t be a homeowner anywhere, in any circumstance, of any political persuasion, who’d stand against that. This is Hermann Scheer’s confident bet — one he has made not only at home, but also in government halls willing to listen, from Spain to China to Ontario. It could indeed be as epochal as Rousseau’s embrace of the social contract.”

  8. Patrick Hamilton says:

    and a note from Dr. David Suzuki, which should be required reading for all Con Luddites and dinosaurs……

    We shouldn’t expect the kids to clean up our mess

    I turned 75 in March. That means I probably won’t be around to see the worst impacts of climate change or any other looming environmental disasters – or the much brighter future that may emerge if we get off our butts to address the problems.

    But I’m also a father and grandfather, and because I care about my children and grandchildren, and all the world’s children, I continue to work and to speak out about environmental challenges and solutions.

    Climate change is already having noticeable impacts around the world, including food shortages, increasing extreme weather events, shrinking glaciers and ice caps, and rising sea levels. We’ve already upset the atmospheric carbon balance, so the more we ignore the problem, the worse it will get.

    It’s unconscionable that we would condemn our children and grandchildren to an increasingly bleak future, especially when readily available solutions would help to resolve many other global problems. Cleaner sources of energy would reduce pollution and the health problems that go along with it. Improving social justice would help give people the time, resources, and inclination to focus on environmental issues and improving their quality of life. Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels would resolve crises that threaten political and economic stability.

    It shouldn’t be up to young people to clean up the messes we have made. After all, we don’t even allow them to vote – to choose who will make decisions on their behalf. And they will be most affected by the decisions made today. But because so many adults have abdicated their responsibility to the world and its children, youth are taking matters into their own hands.

    One young person in the U.S., 16-year-old Alec Loorz, is even taking his government to court over its inaction on climate change. He and others have launched actions against state and federal governments in an attempt to have the atmosphere declared a “public trust” that must be protected, a concept that has been used to clean up polluted rivers and coastlines. “We will let the world know that climate change is not about money, it’s not about power, it’s not about convenience,” he says. “It’s about our future. It’s about the survival of this and every generation to come.”

    Alec Loorz started an organization called iMatter when he was just 13. He has rallied youth from around the world to march during the second week of May to raise awareness about climate change. He argues that children have “the moral authority” to ask their parents and leaders, “Do I matter to you?”

    It’s a question that deserves an answer. For many adults, the honest answer would have to be, “No, we’re more concerned about cheap gas, the economy, profits for the fossil fuel industry, and having more stuff.”

    Reading about Alec Loorz reminded me of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. My daughter Severn, who was just 12, gave a speech that silenced the delegates and brought many to tears. During her talk she asked the adults, “Are we even on your list of priorities?” She also reminded them that “Losing a future is not like losing an election or a few points on the stock market.”

    After her speech, a reporter said to her, “Yeah, we’ve done a pretty lousy job of taking care of the environment, but you kids are different; you’ll lead the way.” I was astonished by her reply. “Oh,” she said, “Is that the excuse for adults to do nothing? Besides, you are our role models. We copy what you do, so how can you expect us to be any different?”

    Severn is now a mother herself, and I’m proud that she takes her commitment to her child and to all children seriously. As well as being a great mom, she works hard to raise awareness about environmental issues through her writing, speaking, and TV appearances. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to help clean up the messes we’ve made. We also owe them respect and support when they get involved and push us to do more for the world. Parents must become eco-warriors on behalf of their children, because their future should be as important to us as it is to them.

    • cgh says:

      My what a pile of drivel from you. In case you hadn’t noticed, the world food shortage is largely the result of the US converting half its corn, soy and canola crop into ethanol. The world’s largest exporter of grains has in just three short years virtually disappeared from the export business.

      Your claims about severe weather events are garbage. The last century of data shows no trend whatsoever.
      Your claims about sea level rise are equally garbage. The rate of rise has not changed in the past century and a half from an average of several mm. per year, entirely attributable to the recovery from the Little Ice Age.

      In short, your claims are just more alarmist nonsense not borne out by any of the projections of the ICRP reports.

      As for your earlier silliness, “…has converted 15 percent of Germany’s electricity grid to renewable power…”
      As usual, you green types can’t tell the difference between energy and capacity.

      As for the nonsense about revenue generation by German householders, please add the capital investment for all that and its rate of return.

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