And still hoping for progress on natural gas
By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com
According to the OFA, “Ontario farmers are dealing with one of the highest electricity rates in North America.” So it’s no surprise they’re not giving up the fight.
A Jan. 8 publication by the Ontario Federation of Agriculture outlined some of the pressing issues facing Ontario’s commercial farmers heading into 2016.
Among them were property taxation, farmland preservation, land-use planning and energy costs.
The Ministry of Energy said it’s committed to using all available resources to protect energy consumers in the province, but OFA said the efforts haven’t produced much success.
“In terms of electricity they haven’t been terribly productive,” said Neil Currie, OFA General Manager today. “We’ve been working with a coalition including the manufacturing sector and large electricity users on the industrial side of things. We made some fairly specific proposals as to how they might lower the rate.”
Currie said some of the proposals included the Debt Retirement Charge, which Ontario discontinued as of Jan. 1.
“That’s gone by the wayside now,” he said.
When it comes to natural gas, OMAFRA says the government is in the process of developing a $200 million Natural Gas Access Loan program and a $30 million Natural Gas Economic Development Grant Program.
OMAFRA says the province is working on the programs and wants to ensure they are designed properly.
“It started out promising,” Currie said. “We haven’t seen the details on that program yet. It hasn’t been rolled out.”
Currie said OFA is emphasizing investments in natural gas infrastructure and wants the provincial government to work along with the federal government to contribute to at least five per cent of the costs.