COMMENTARY: An election powered by electricity

Consumer rates for electricity have become an important issue in the 2018 Ontario election. Why? Because voters believe that their household hydro bills have been increasing faster than is reasonable, and that the Liberal government is to blame for it.

While experts may have arguments about why voters are wrong about this, they won’t matter in this election campaign. That’s because perception is reality in politics, and right now, voters perceive that they are the victims of avarice and incompetence when it comes to electricity prices.

They also want to punish somebody for it. That somebody is Ontario Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne and the Liberal Party.

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The Progressive Conservatives have done their best to fan the flames of voter resentment by blaming the premier, the CEO of Hydro, and Hydro’s board of directors for rate increases.

Whatever the technical and legal justifications, paying the CEO of Hydro $6 million a year (Doug Ford’s “six-million-dollar man”), along with the board members voting themselves generous fee increases, has been like rubbing salt in the wounds of angry consumers.

Add in the government’s tepid response to all of this, and you have the ingredients for a major election issue. For Ford and the PCs, it’s like taking candy from a baby.

Another way that hydro prices play badly for the Liberals is that the opposition has made a link to what it has described as the mismanagement of the province’s green energy strategy. This involves the power contracts that Ford keeps banging on about either cancelling or renegotiating.

2:36 Ont. Leaders’ Debate: Leaders spar over hydro

WATCH ABOVE: Ontario party leaders spar over hydro

Again, the premier explaining that there’s nothing that can be done about this works as well for Ford as if she said he is right. Impotence in the face of public ire usually plays badly for incumbents.

Also on the green energy strategy, ratepayers feel that they are being asked to pay too much to fight climate change.

As with changing views on carbon taxes, the public wants to do something about carbon up to the point where it is asked to pay a meaningful amount to deal with it. Not getting this was a misreading by the Liberals of the public’s views on climate change. Ultimately, it adds weight to Ford’s positioning of the Liberals as incompetent managers.

Where does Andrea Horwath‘s NDP fit? For the moment, it doesn’t. But, it must be careful about how it engages. Like the Liberals, the NDP firmly believes in fighting climate change. If it’s not careful, it could end up picking up the Liberals’ political baggage and become an easy target for Ford and the PCs to attack.

To the extent the NDP has jumped into the debate, it has said it would reverse the privatization of Ontario Hydro as a solution for rising electricity prices. Public ownership of significant utilities went out of vogue in the 1980s, and unlike Abba, hasn’t found a way to make a comeback.

Like the Liberals getting out ahead of public opinion on their green energy strategy, the NDP must be careful it doesn’t get out ahead of the public on expanding government ownership of Ontario’s power assets.

Darrell Bricker is CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs.

2:36 Ont. Leaders’ Debate: Leaders spar over hydro