Infuriating . . .

The newest NDP energy policy

Ryan J. Weiss

Dave Chomiak has been Manitoba’s energy minster for some time now, and he has run a typically efficient department. Unfortunately, that all changed recently when the NDP introduced a plan so perverse and so politically selfish, it drew the awe and amazement of many of Manitoba’s political academics.

Mr. Chomiak has pledged his “plan” of using record Hydro profits to subsidize and offset the cost of natural gas in Manitoba in response to an “energy shock” — an energy shock that the rest of the world is somehow managing to bear. His own self-proclaimed “best friend” and former NDP premier Ed Schreyer blasted the Doer government, calling it “the most regrettable step the provincial government could take.” Provincial Liberal leader Jon Gerrard went even further, stating that this “shows the lengths the NDP party will go to buy votes.”

Discounting the principles of economics, discounting the principles of fair-use and discounting the principles of market-based responses, this act is morally and ethically wrong based on the sheer principles of environmentalism. The NDP government has laughed in the face of every single one of the party’s principles by introducing legislation that is not only environmentally perverse, but ships energy profits from our province to the oil- and gas-rich regions of Alberta.

This typifies the short-sighted political cowardice that continues to plague our provincial political arena. Say what you want about the way the NDP government has run since unseating Gary Filmon’s Conservatives, but Doer has done a better job than many could. But this recent action has moved to take the single biggest natural resource that this province has — the same natural resource that Doer has staked so much of his past political rhetoric upon — and penalize it for being cheaper, more efficient and more environmentally friendly.

Doer has “taxed” those that have opted to think long-term and invest in a cleaner, renewable and cheaper form of energy, and has given those benefits to the people who are continuing to create harmful greenhouse gases and increase the western world’s reliance on non-renewable, foreign sources of oil.

Instead of allowing our best natural resource to develop and increase this province’s wealth, this government has, in effect, continued the promotion of a natural resource that will only make Alberta richer. It’s as simple as this: Hydro profits are being shipped off to Alberta. Thank you, Mr. Chomiak.

But let me address the concern of “social welfare” and the “noble” responsibility felt by the NDP in introducing this legislation. I will ignore the fact that every other province, state and country that uses fossil fuels has felt it necessary to pass the increasing cost of wanton ecological disruption on to the very people who are causing it — the consumer. Manitoba finds itself “morally superior” by “subsidizing” this continued environmental disruption for that wonderful socialist goal, the “greater good.”

Unfortunately, the promise of ecological harmony often comes with economic costs, and yet the Doer Government continues to ignore that fact. But if the need to cushion the blow of these gas shocks does exist, there are in fact much better ways to do it. The NDP government has hailed this as a way to protect the poor, when really it has shown no favouritism towards the rich, poor or middle class. This policy may even be more favourable to the more affluent and wealthy, as they tend to consume more natural gas.

Economic leaders, professors and political activists have proclaimed for years that an “energy tax rebate” for those below a certain economic threshold would have better accomplished the same goals while still promoting some limited sense of environmental responsibility. But to spread these perverse incentives across the entire economic spectrum is nothing more than backward and inefficient.

Why hasn’t this administration taken the opportunity to see Hydro’s profits soar due to increased competitiveness in international energy markets and reap these profits at home — for the greater social good?

The answer is simple: more people use gas than electric heat in Manitoba, and therefore this move translates into more votes. I do not find the NDP guilty of any sort of political conspiracy, just rational politics. It’s too bad that those rational politics will end up hurting the province and its people in the long run.

Ryan J. Weiss has a degree in marketing and systems management from the University of Manitoba.