NDP and taxes on home heating

Geoff OB, I've read the material and am puzzled. Why wouldn't the NDP recommend making home heating income-tax deductible?

I read somewhere - can't remember where I saw it - that Quebec is being pressured to raise its hydro rates. That's bad news for us here on the Quebec coast who only have access to electric or wood heat. I'm on disability - and a rise in electric rates will affect me.

That is EXACTLY the exerience of many in Ontario Boom Boom.  Low or fixed incomes coupled with soaring energy bills and most of it to support a deluded Green Energy Act that is driving up costs through guarenteed private profits.  It also shows how stupid energy generation policy has become as it is now geared towards profit instead of at cost, public benefit energy.

ETA

Thanks remind I appreciate that.

Just a bit of an addition.  It's not even a matter of being able to afford 'eco-luxaries' but to be able to afford even the most standard of measures that can lead to lower heating costs.  Things like upgrading old and inefficient furnaces and systems to more efficient models and other fairly standard home basics like good insulation or replacing older windows.   Then there are the renters who have little control on the systems that heat where they live (even if they wanted too) and will see costs passed on in higher rents or just higher monthly payments overall with little that can be done about it.

Thanks, Unionist. I remember that thread now. I can only afford to live here because of the cheap hydro. If rates increase, I have to adjust my budget - I am living on what is called a "disability allowance" by my former employer, and Quebec pays 1/3 of it. I wonder if the PQ would oppose raising hydro rates here? (I'll go look at the other thread later to see if this was discussed).

If hydro rates do indeed rise in Quebec, it will be totally an artificial mark-up, because this province has proven it can sell hydro at almost the lowest rates in Canada. I hope the BQ and PQ oppose this neoliberal BS, because don't they speak for the average Quebecer, and not the rich? 

And to "this guy"...I'd say that about the only political community still attached to that notion of saving the planet by charging everyone more, without distinction of life chances, would be the Green Party...at least, that element of Libertarians that controls it and collects the dues of the believers.

Of course, those who spend the most on home heating fuel (i.e. the rich with their large houses, heated floors, heated driveways, etc. etc. etc.) will get the greatest benefit out of reducing or eliminating sales taxes.  Sure, you reduce taxes for everyone, but you're also handing those who least need assistance a significant cash windfall.  It's a dumb policy (and that's before you even get into the climate change issue).

Tax credits or deductions don't help, as you said, because those who need the most help are playing little or no income taxes.  The best policy wouldn't be to eliminate sales taxes but to give low-income earners additional cash transfers, like they already get via the GST rebate, to offset those taxes they are paying (while still collecting sales taxes from higher-income earners).

A little bit of paradox can come into play here.  I wish I had my regular computer back because I have some bookmarks which talk about it.  Higher income earners with bigger houses don't automatically pay more $$$ in overall heating costs.  It the world of house design and construction bigger doesn't automatically mean more cost.  Mega uber houses sure but in a range of average house sizes someone with living in a smaller house and even apartment  can actually have to pay more in overall costs then someone in a house twice the size in terms of square footage.   This is due to whole number of factors that derive from how the thing designed and built in the first place, the materials used, the heating systems employed and even where the structure is situated.   Heated floors for instance can actually cost  less to run then a 25 year old furnace in a badly designed house (in terms of it's thermal currents and material structure) even though the heated floor one is bigger.

It still speaks to income disparity though because high income earners can better afford to do things, build houses or buy houses that lead to increased efficiency and less ongoing costs. It's just more complicated then saying bigger and richer automatically means more.

Just to give an example. I and my neighbor have about the same house size in terms of actual square feet.  They're both older farm houses and built around the same time.   They use more to keep their house heated, even though mine is less insulated.  They've redone theirs I'm slowly working at upgrading mine.  The major factor at play though is just basic design.  Their house is spread out more. It takes up more horizontal space. My house is smaller horizontally and stacked vertically.  Heat rises and it takes more to get the heat into the spaces it needs to be and they end up having to supplement with electric space heating.  In mine a single heat source, except on the most bitter days suffices to even heat the floor two floors up.  

  I have other friends who retired and spent a couple of years building their own house. They use the exact same heat source as I do and even though their house is almost twice the size of mine square footage wise we're using the about the same amount of fuel overall.  It's just the way it was designed. In that case taking passive solar, house situation(the side facing the prevailing winter winds is more insulated and has barely any windows) , insulation materials and internal design in terms of thermal flow in mind. 

I do think though that the point that removing taxes will give the richer a break when maybe they don't need it is a good one because in many cases it would.  However when looking at possible solutions on how to deal with the overall issue I do think it's important to move away from looking at it from the viewpoint that bigger just automatically means more costs.  Basic structure, design, material use, efficiency of whatever heating system is employed and age that in many cases factor as more important then just size.

EliQ I agree about house design etc.  We need programs to retrofit and the NDP has proposed some decent ones. I would rather see them really pushing that avenue and have a footnote that they will also take the HST off of heating bills, if that is considered a real vote getter.  As it is the tax reduction is the story and the retrofit is the footnote.

It appears that they do:

At the end of the day, we're going to have to pay more for oil, not less.  Making oil cheaper is bad for climate change and bad for government revenues.  People on low incomes do need assistance with the costs though, that's why they should get cash transfers just as they do now with the GST rebate.

Instead, the NDP is proposing to give everyone cash (through tax cuts) - and the rich more cash than anyone else.  It's dumb.

Indeed there are far better ways to help people including a low income heating credit that would reimburse low income households for part of their heating bill.  In the graph above a family with $30,000 in income pays 5.6% of its income on heating.  The middle to upper income family with $90,000 pays 2.6% of their income on heating and from there it drops even more for the rich.  A targeted program instead of a cross the board tax cut is always better in my opinion.  Helping families who pay for their heat whether rental or not get to the $60,000 level of 3.4% would help where the help is needed.  In the meantime we need the gas guzzling upper class to pay more because they use more. At the same we need to be providing incentives to retrofit starting, with coops and private homes and then into the rental market where the government is having to pay subsidies because the retrofits haven't been done. 

I hate boxes.

I don't know about 2008 but here in Burnaby I paid $1.21 the other day.  It is peak time now as far as I can tell.  The number of Prius Toyotas on the road in the Lower Mainland has grown exponentially in the last three years.  Our taxi fleet is almost all converted over to hybrids because the companies have been replacing their aging cars with them for a few years.  

The price of gas does change behaviour.  I would rather see programs of support for struggling families targeted to heating costs rather than tax breaks that will provide a greater benefit to middle and upper income families. 

Boom Boom we not only have connecting roads we have the vast majority of the west coast refineries and oil and gas transportation hubs in Burnaby. When I lived in the East Kootenays I loved the fact that the cheapest gas in the province was serendipitously in Invermere where the rich Calgary oil players have their summer homes.

Question, Boomer.  What's the generator for. Backup?

It never fails to amaze me how little people understand the reality of not having much money.  I had to live that way several times over the course of my life.  Choosing not to heat to the same standards as others happens now all the time and would only get worse under the kinds of things some are proposing.  In Ontario we have had an additional 8 per cent burden placed on those with the least through the HST implementation for all manner of heating types from oil to wood.  Those are significant burndens.  Reducing someones costs by 5 per cent at time of use is a significant help.  Is it the total answer, of course not.  But it is a help.  And one that could be easily acheived.  And that acheiving easily is key for restoring faith in government.  It is not anti-tax, or any of the stupid nonsense I have read on babble over the last year.  It is anti-bad government policy. 

And all that graph above demonstrates that those with more can afford to heat their homes to a higher standard.  There is no attempt to determine how those with lower incomes are heating their residences.  Do they drop the tempurature down really low at night and try to sleep under piles of sleeping bags.  Do they use of their electrical box payments (many housing units now have pre-paid hydro meters where you can literally watch your meter tick down to zero) earlier in the month and basically have to live in winter coats in the house until the next cheque.  Do they just leave the heat on at about 16 and spend much of the winter cold and sick.  I have seen all of these and more in my activism work over my lifetime.  So that graph is completely and utterly meaningless for determining how a small part of the larger NDP policy on energy use might benefit those with the least.

As well I can not believe that people who would be so blais about those who are the most vulnerable in our society and basically seem to suggest they should just suck it up for the greater good can still call themselves progressive on anything including the environment.  An  evironmentalist believes in sustainability - that also means sustainable communities that work for all.  The kind of systems some propose are anything but sustainable - they drive wedges of greater inequality between the haves and the have nots.   These schemes are as corrupt to the core as anything I see from conservative circles.

The problem with private enterprise solutions is that there is little incentive for any private company to sell less of anything. Transnational energy companies selling Canadian fossil fuels and electrical power will never want to sell less. Conservation and efficiency are bad for fossil fuel company profits. And guess what? The Tories and Liberals sold the environment to Exxon-Imperial and friends some time ago. The only way we could possibly have made in Canada national energy policy is to either abrogate or renegotiate NAFTA in the interests of ordinary Canadians and the environment. And this is one more reason why I vote NDP.

LTU: "I can not believe that people who would be so blais about those who are the most vulnerable in our society and basically seem to suggest they should just suck it up for the greater good can still call themselves progressive on anything including the environment"

Right on. And with a little more effort at understanding THE MARKET and who is benefitting from prevailing inequality, the NDP can propose FORCING those investing in REITs to bring their older housing units up to insulation and heating standards so that tenants can afford to heat AND eat!  As far as I know, REITs are the only remaining Income Trusts not taxed (the one decision of Jimmy's that this citizen could agree with, ever, was to require taxes on all the other desperate, vote-seeking Liberal creations. )

There are many more ways in which growing inequities could be tamed by the taming of a market in which, unfortunately, ALL seem now required to be "coupon clippers." 

Thanks, Boom Boom.

We were visiting friends in the Laurentians on New Year's eve, and we had a power outage from about 9 pm to about 1 am. They didn't have a generator (they're weekend/summer cottagers), but most of their neighbours did, of varying kinds and capacities. That's what got me wondering - especially when you use hydro for heating (or even, I guess, for pilot lights?). The 1998 ice storm left many people freezing.

I have a small generator just 1400 watts for use in power outages.  It is enough to run the freezer, refrigerator, a few lights and the water pump.  Can't get water right now without power because we're on a well.   Right I just have it set up to use the plug ins on the generator but I'll be setting up the electrical system so that with the flick of a couple of switches the necessities will be powered in a long term outage.  A larger generator would do more and any time you add heat production as a necessity the power needs goes way way up.   Heat at my place is wood supplmented by some electric heating.  The electric isn't necessary when the power goes down.  

 Last year I think the power went out briefly a couple of times.  The year before it went off a lot.  At that time I was totally dependent on grid power for heat.  During one outage I had 20 week old chicks under a heat lamp in the dining room, a puppy and two kittens.  I could have likely survived an extended outage but the animals were another story.  When it became apparent that the power wasn't going to come on any time soon and no one seemed to know when it would come back,  I ended up calling around  to find some heat.  I drove the menagerie an hour an half away to house in town which had gas heat and the chicks spent a couple days in front of the gas fire.   My family still gets a kick out of that story.

You can always tell its a farmer or a fan of Robert Frost when "bush" cord is assumed.   Few city folk can afford those any more.

:D

Well that is an interesting interpretation, but perhaps I should remind you that taxes are what pay for social services, health care, education, transit, etc. which do benefit everyone.  To me lowering taxes is not progressive, but the taxes have to be levied in appropriate ways.  Although a lot of lower income people smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol in quantities above the national average, most people would not advocate lowering taxes on these during difficult economic times.  I am not saying that the most vulnerable in society should be left to just fend for themselves, but tax relief or other forms of financial assistance should come in a better way instead of tying it to how much fossil fuels are consumed for heating.

And from another perspective... Is it progressive to give the Canadian poor the ability to burn more fossil fuels when those emissions will cause catastrophic climate change mostly in the third world, where people are much much poorer?

I have my own woodsplitter - electric - now in its fifth year, works like a charm. Best $300 I ever spent.

A friend of mine here on the coast had a home that was so heavily insulated that just one log burning in a small wood stove would heat the entire house. Takes my wood burning furnace about two hours to get my house as warm as his. (he's in BC now)

Hmmm. One of Canada's largest, if not the largest slumlords is.....the federal government. over 60,000 units of social and low income housing owned by the feds is substandard and needs major work, if not outright replacement.

While municipal entities do have the power to force slumlords into meeting fire and building code standards, they do not seem to put much effort into these flophouses. One excuse is that if the codes are too rigorously enforced, the buildings will simply be torn down, putting the tenants out of their homes.

And Canada isn't even so generous in that regard since the feds scrapped Canada's national housing strategy in the 1990s. Duncan Cameron reported here that the City of New York has more social housing units for 8 million people than Canada has for 33 million. Thel levels of homelessness in Canada are a national disgrace. Markets simply do not provide affordable housing, and there is a real need for affordable housing in Canada. We have all the raw materials and energy to make homelessness disappear, and yet we're making astronomical prices for our own lumber and veneer. And the prices only go up here whenever the US plunge protection team decides that they should work to artificially inflate housing prices in that country. And watch the price of lumber here skyrocket whenever there is destruction by hurricanes, tornadoes etc in the NAFTA master nation dictating "free market" rules.

We'll have to agree to disagree then. Because neither the NDP nor I believe that low income Canadians should have to choose between electricity, being warm in winter, and putting food on the table. I think Canadians have a right to live with dignity and to have a roof over their heads and a right to food. Conservatives and some on the centre-right do not believe in guaranteeing these same basic human rights recognized by a majority of rich countries.

There are many other ways of raising overall federal tax revenues without shifting taxation on to labour and onto the backs of the poor just as the right maintains that the rich and corporations should not carry all of the burden of taxation which they have not done so in North America for a long time anyway.

We have to remember that it was a successive conservative governments in provinces like Ontario that encouraged people to use as much electricity as they could beginning after the turn of the last century. Hydro-electric power was plentiful in Canada's largest industrialised province throughout much of the last century as electrical grids expanded from urban centres to rural areas. And it was true then that electrical power was plentiful. The more people who hooked up to the system, the cheaper the rates would be for everyone. But now it's different. Ontario has become a good example of how not to design an industrialised economy. And everyone wants central a/c in all new homes as if they were living in places like Florida where temperatures really do require a/c. The Liberals and conservatives before them in Toronto ignored environmentalists and the NDP calling for energy conservation and efficiency to stave off the need for another Darlington nuclear megafiasco. And we've paid for their expensive nuclear mistakes and bad central planning or the lack of it, for many years on our light bills.

 Like we said before, it gets cold in Canada. Canadians have few choices but to pay whatever to be warm in winter. The natural gas pipelines and drilling rights were pawned off to the corporatocracy and their rich American friends from the 1950s forward. Natural gas could have been a key piece of the energy solution in Canada's largest and most industrialised province. We were betrayed many years before the CUSFTA-NAFTA betrayals/treasonous acts by a succession of stoogeuacrats in Ottawa and Queen's Parks. As of 2005, Canada's economy reverted to hewer and drawer status, once again. That's not the NDP's fault or the fault of Canadians in general. If you don't want a real, modernizing G8 economy, then make sure never to vote NDP, because the other two parties running things into the ground will make sure it never happens.

Thanks Boom Boom. I try sometimes. It may appear as if I have two left hands on some days, but I give it all I've got. I just hope the other person is impressed similarly.

Pfffff! You're being vvvery generous. But I can suck it up jts.  I can see it all now. I'd prolly get myself tossed from the HoC first day.

He says very little about Canada being the most significant exporter of cheap fossil fuels and total energy to the world's most wasteful and most fossil fuel-dependent economy in the world south of us. Apparently he's not worried that Canada's national energy policy is dictated to us from corporate board rooms in America. Apparently this-guy isn't worried about Canadians paying through the nose to stay warm in winter.

50% of Canadian natural gas production was exported to the northern US last winter. And it was barely enough to meet demand. NAFTA says we have to guarantee them somewhere around 60% of Canadian NG production.

They say that what can not go on forever will stop.

Someone will have to pay. Better that working class Canadians, the old and the sick on low incomes pay than those who can afford it. And when Canada's crude oil and most profitable gas reserves run out in just a few short year's time, then the howling will begin.

Buckle-up Canada! The Tories are drivin' after tossing back way too much o' the neoliberal kool aid down their necks, and we're a headin' for the rhubarb patch big time.

I should mention that last year I put on new windows, siding, and an insulation wrap, and my hydro bills so far have dropped a bit - it's early in the winter, so I'll have to see how it goes. But there are absolutely no drafts anywhere in the living area, where before the hallways especially remained cool even with the wood furnace going full blast - but back then, we used to get really cold winters. Our winters are really mild now.

Well some peeps are quite enamored of the party but I'm not one of them.  I am hardly partisan. Never have been and I can't see that changing any time soon.  Doesn't mean I put my vote there but it's not a given.   My comments have little to do with 'NDP says so I will just automatically support it' without actually thinking about it.   Thanks but I'm not a robot.  (not suggesting others are either this is about me and only me) 

I am well aware of Canadians fossil fuel consumption and agree 100% completely with the need to reduce it and make Canadian 'living'  more efficient and less wasteful.   In my perfect world a whole lot something would be occur across the board to address this fact.  However that doesn't mean that I just say chop chop chop on the idea of the sheer principle without looking at the ramifications of the policies and yes in this case the plight, the struggle etc etc of lower income people in meeting the most basic of needs outweighs the overarching need to do exactly what you are arguing.   In this case I am actually compromising my chop, chop, chop beliefs.   Do I think that doing it with taxes is the absolute best plan and way forward?   Nope, not at all.   It would be much better if there was something else like some suggested subsidies, rebates for lower incomes etc etc.  However these sorts of programs are a pain in the fricken butt to set up and get agreed to in the first place because they require added $$$ for the paper pusher to run them    They also seem to always miss people who don't quite meet the 'paper' qualifications.    Some of the suggestions are also not up in the front.  Pay then get the 'relief' is just  not an acceptable policy because when one is living pay check to pay check every penny counts and waiting for months to get it back or getting it back once a year squeezes.    Been there and know what it's like. 

So if there was a way to deal with the lower income part of the scale in terms of 'relief'  in fast, quick, upfront manner where the initial costs would be the same as the savings if the tax wasn't there then I'd be all for it.   The process needs to happen fast though. 

So when I weigh all of these pro and cons I come out with that this  tax thing although a compromise with allow all those wasteful and better settled households to keep doing there thing to me it seems like the better out of a lot of not perfect or great options.  And while I completely agree that higher prices promote and provide motivation for people to use less of things and in the long run can lead to a reduction in fossil fuel use what many don't talk about that with these types of incentives its takes a while for the overall economy to adjust.  They have to wind their way through the system before they show a whole lot of good.  So perhaps better for the long term and the good of the country and the globe over all but in the meantime there are short term needs that have to be recognized. 

     The basic fact is that any adjustments in our overall economy in terms of reducing fossil fuel use and getting off the oil are going to hurt, they are going to be painful and are going to adversely affect people on the lower end of the scale more then people who have the resources to deal with these adjustments and the transition.   We're not just talking economic change here either but widescale social change as well.  A society and economy where fossil fuel use is reduced to the levels necessary to meet the threat of climate change is going to be different the what exists today.  It's not just going to be 'tweaked' here and there.   Any large scale ecomonic change no matter the reason always hit the lower segment harder.  Anyone who tries to suggest that getting off the oil is going to be some sort cakewalk with a few tweaks here and there is living a fantasy world.  There will be sacrifices if we do what needs to be done in terms of long term viability.   I have no problem in saying this totally and completely sucks.  The broader issue is trying to figure ways of doing it to not try to avoid the pain which is largely unavoidale  but mitigate it, make it as painless as possible.   That's of course if some sort of consensus can ever be reached to actually enact some sort of broad plan and course of action. Right now that's debatable if that will ever happen but that's another discussion.

Regardless at least the way I look at and is that the most basic of needs have to be looked out for.   Staying warm in this country is one of them.  And if that means that on this point the some compromises have to be made in view of those who have little wiggle room, a segment that is actually increasing in numbers and that it gives others a break then so be it.  There are many, many other ways of fostering and putting out incentives to encourage reductions.  There are many, many other things that can be down to increase overall economic efficiency.  A tax or no tax on home fuel is a very minor tweak in regards to the overarching problem.  And while I totally get and understand the arguement for it in terms of climate change I don't think it's absolutely vital that it has to be done right now, especially since there is very little inkling of how it fits into wider strategy that's going to be implemented in the near future. 

So that's some of my broader thinking around why I am not fussed about the NDP's idea around this tax.   I don't think it's a perfect or even great idea but an okay one in light  of everything else.

I am waiting for Conservatives, first among the conspicuous consumers and first to call for tax reductions...to signify that they give one fiddler's fart about the future of their own progeny, let alone others.

And I await others, of whatever political persuasion, to admit that the election of Conservatives - across North America - has been assured from the time of Ronnie Raygun simply by promising lower taxes. Liberals, under Jean and Paul, began cutting transfers to the provinces in 1994 just to stay ahead of the Conservative pack riding up out of the West.

Now, there's nothing left to cut (oh, another point will come off the corporate tax rate, lowering it to the target 15 per cent in a year's time) and McGuinty is only doing what has become necessary to save what is left of public medicine and education.

But people should be able to eat and heat in a Canadian winter.  This guy opened this thread "to see what others think of the NDP and and their push to remove the tax on home heating." He found out. He is properly concerned about our collective fate if we don't do something about carbon emissions - it has been a central question for me since the late 1960s. But how he can believe that the poor should pay the price of their health as the price to satisfy his concern, is beyond me.

George Lakoff asks in "don't think of an elephant" :"Why don't progressives take advantage of wedge issues?"  It came to me that maybe "this guy" is just developing another wedge issue for obsessed Green Party Libertarians. I wouldn't know how else to describe him (or her).

Actually there were a number of substantive posts about the topic.  The problem was they showed your 'let the poor pay for the sins of the past' views as wanting.  I know its hard to understand, but just because someone agrees with a policy of the NDP it does not make them defenders of the party line.  Your type of argument is the strawman of those who can't stand when people disagree with their view that the NDP is an anti-progressive force.  The simple reality is that I happen to agree with this policy plank and on balance think it is best and quickest way to relieve those dealing with poor heating and insulation options with limited funds while we work on the larger project of much greater energy effeciency and reducing our emmisions.  I know it is outmoded and an old fashioned view but I think people have a right to warmth, food and shelter.   You are free to disagree but lecturing people like me who were talking about the greenhouse effect back in the 70s as if we are climate change deniers isn't going to get warm, cuddly responses.

Fidel nails it again, as usual. I'm going to borrow that post.

Bang on, Fidel. And Canada is losing the developed expertise of hundreds of Canadians trained in the objective evaluation of homes under an Energuide for Houses program that guaranteed honest appraisal. It was just beginning to grow to be an effective force...but less than 8 per cent of Canadian housing stock that needed attention and qualified for the program had been evaluated.  Given the Conservative's position of denial on things environmental - their fundamentalist followers find it positively the devil's work - their dropping the program was not completely unexpected.

And the armchair critics are likely to write off our comments as simply party propaganda.

I agree George the emphasis should be on the retrofit program.  To me the taxes component is a diversion from talking about the important issue of rebuilding our economy with local employment.  Taking the HST off home heating might be a great idea but sell that as the side dish not the main course.  

Why not get really radical and call for a loans program for home owners to buy energy production items like solar panels?  Add on a dash of incentives to the provinces to buy back power from the new green energy producers on people's roofs.  The above is clearly well within NDP policy. To me it is about emphasis prior to an election. Promise people that their neighbours who work in the trades will have full employment and that new opportunities will be available for others to set up service companies to have an ongoing local economy that isn't boom and bust.  

Never mind I am sure that the Canadian voter would rather hear that the NDP will save them a few hundred dollars on their heating bills.

Yes, the NDP does mention financial incentives in their 2008 platform. There is mention of small scale solar power power plants at the community level. I've seen other countries already have these kinds of solar generation plants already in place in various European cities. The NDP is strong on investing in renewabale energy sources. The NDP does have in their plan financial incentives for clean power from solar, wind, water and other sources from industrial co-gen to small scale community facilities.

According the green power experts like Amory Lovins, the future of power generation is local not long distance transmission or any of the free market voodoo for dregulated power nor even "spot markets" for power, like the harebrained Tory and Liberal schemes for buying and selling power that flopped so spectacularly here in Ontario and dozens of US states since the 1990s. In fact, Ontario under  Rae's NDP was the first province in Canada to have a plan in place to reduce green house gas emissions. The NDP is very clean and very green with a proven track record.

What we don't need are more corporate welfare handouts to the fossil fuel industry and pawning off public utilities to rich friends of "the party." The NDP also promises to stop the gravy train for big oil.

It all depends on what part of the country we're talking about. In Northern Ontario, there is excess power from falling water. McGuinty's Liberals made sure to mess that up for them though, incredibly.

In places like Southern Ontario where demand is higher, Tories and Liberals thought that piling people higher and deeper in urban centres was smart. More nuclear, and everyone wants central a/c. That's not sustainable.

Some parts of the country are ideal for wind , solar and renewables while others have excess generation from falling water. There is no single rule for a particular power source. And in the larger picture, Canada is a net exporter of electrical power. It's really messed up due to a lack of planning in Ottawa and provinces, and I must say there has been some corruption involved over time and producing the current situation.

Lovins et all told Bob Rae's government that we need to learn to live where nature can support us. This should be a governing factor as to which renewable or mixture of renewables and clean energy communities should be pursuing.

The future is microgeneration according to experts like Lovins and NDP. But we want to avoid what Campbell's people have done in BC with the run of the river dance fiasco out there. That circus is a good  example of how not to do micro-gen.

Solar panels on rooftops and even solar roofing materials is a good idea, and the Brits and Germans have done a good job there with providing incentives to homeowners. But really, what we don't need is more urban sprawl and one or two people living in big barns. They aren't going to be able to afford to heat them in so many years. Those kinds of McMansions will eventually drop in value. We can't have rich developers determining how the national housing stock will look in two or three decades time, because they don't have a clue about what's coming. They just build what people think they can afford now. Watch those homes drop in value over the next 10 or 15 due to a lack of overall planning. They've been sleep walking in Ottawa and Toronto and Victoria.

What's a mud room, Boom Boom? That sounds interesting.

I think I could use a mud room at the front. My problem is a lack of frontage. The city moved the property line on the whole street years ago and without compensation for all but one special person down the street,  and now all our front steps are real close to the road allowance.

quote: "Solar panels on rooftops and even solar roofing materials is a good idea"

Be great in Arizona. Iqaluit could use them for a brief time in summer. Run some lights and a tv set/radio. Just like a cottage.

Lovins has been making a living from his feel-good generalizations for a couple of generations.

I didn't realize that, Fidel. Maybe you could convert the front room to kind of a mud room vestibule?

I gotta figure somethin out. It seems like I'm sweeping and wiping near the front door like alla time. It's driving me bananas. I think I could have OCD or something.

Sounds like a plan. We'll have to meet up for beers after you get to Gatineau in 016-17 thereabouts.

Just so long as we use more energy and not less, our corrupt stooges and their power industry pals are laughing all the way to the bank.

Once upon a time the NDP, in their constitution preambe stated:

"The production and distribution of goods and services shall be directed to meeting the social and individual needs of people within a sustainable environment and economey, AND NOT TO THE MAKING OF PROFIT; To modify and control the operations of the monopolistic productive and distributive organizations through economic and socil planning, and, where necessary, the extention of social ownership."

BUT

They have abandoned this preamble to their constitution; under Jack Layton it has become a populist mini-liberal party. I muist confess, Jack has left me no political home because he has basicly killed the "socialist" aspect of the NDP. Why would it surprize you that he haS  abandon concern about carbon and the environment to chase votes. Now, like all others he pays cheap lip service to issues. These days it seemes politics are never about US, its always ABOUT THEM.

We need to get back to that place where WE sent MPs to Ottawa to speak for us, now Ottawa tells our MPs WHAT they MUST DO FOR THE PARTY. It has vnothing to do with representing ridings anymore.

Another one ready to let old folks freeze in the dark to satisfy their fantaxy.

Another one ready to let old folks freeze in the dark to satisfy their fantasy.

Surely, JAT, you cannot forget the last act of the Senate before this election was called?  Where is your ice-floe drifting?