green energy act

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In 2009, under the Premiership of Dalton McGuinty, the Ontario legislature passed the Ontario Green Energy Act (GEA), an Act that aimed to increase Ontario’s use of renewable energy such as wind power, solar power, biofuels, and small-scale hydropower. The centerpiece of the Act is a schedule of subsidized electricity purchase contracts – called Feed-in-Tariffs – that provide long-term guarantees of above-market rates for power generated by those renewables.


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Earlier this month the Fraser Institute published a report sharply critical of one of the flagship policies of the Ontario government, namely the Ontario Green Energy Act (GEA). We found that the Act is costing Ontario over $5 billion annually but yields negligible environmental benefits, and that equivalent or greater benefits could have been achieved using conventional pollution control measures at less than one-tenth the cost.