TORONTO – Ontario’s energy minister introduced legislation Thursday to overturn a decision on natural gas connections by the province’s independent energy regulator, a move decried by environmental advocates as a setback to progress on clean energy.
‘The last thing we want to be doing is intervening here, but we do have the best interests of the people of Ontario in mind,” Smith said. “If the Ford government overrules the Ontario Energy Board, homeowners will get stuck with higher costs and more air pollution,” Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada wrote in a statement.
The energy board ruled that Enbridge’s long-term plan is unreasonable because it assumes that every new housing development will include gas servicing and that homebuyers will remain on gas for 40 years, despite an energy transition toward electrification being underway.