The Ultimate Car Salesman

That would be the Premier of the Province of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty. He has a new plan to get us to buy cars made by GM, the company bailed out by our/my tax money. Nice...

So let me get this right. Not only do the residents of Ontario own part of the automobile industry with the huge bailouts, our genius provincial government of the day run by Premier Dalton McGuinty is bribing us with up to $10,000 rebates if we buy an electric car from said auto makers. Good one... where does he get the money to give us rebates? Well from our tax money of course. How many times do we have to pay to keep these car companies in business?

There's a couple of things wrong with this plan of his in my mind. First and foremost, the charge on these vehicles doesn't get you very far and there are no charging stations anywhere yet and no real concrete plans to where they will be. So you'd really only be able to use this car in and around the city. Forget using it to get up to our cabin in the woods which is about 225 km away.

The second problem is the little issue of the cost of electricity which is quite expensive now that we have smart meters with time of day pricing here in Ontario. Heck I'm already doing my laundry and dishes in the middle of the night. Come winter I'll have to turn my furnace off in the daytime and heat only at night and McGuinty wants us to buy electric cars. I'm already dreading this months hydro bill even though I've been so careful.

This man is looking for ways to part us with our money. Hydro is a public utility and the more we use the more money in the kitty. He's also recently suspended plans for a new nuclear power plant in Ontario and the current ones are pretty old and only produce about fifty percent of our power needs. Where does the rest come from? Burning coal maybe?

This is the same man who said he wouldn't raise taxes as part of his election promise and within one month slapped us with the biggest tax ever disguised as a health care premium. He is also combining the provincial sales tax and GST next summer which means everything will be taxed. Right now there are many things where there is no PST payable such as real estate fees, lawyers fees, and home renovations just to name a few.

If you want to buy an electric car go for it. I don't have a single objection. What I do object to and very strongly is that it is my tax dollars that will subsidize it and that is patently unfair.

Here are the old summer electricity rates that residential users without activated smart meters pay:

5.7 ¢/kWh for the first 600 kWh in a month
6.6 ¢/kWh for each additional kWh

Of course, this is only the cost for the electricity, excluded are transmission charges, distribution charges,

Here are the new "Smart-Meter" summer electricity rates for Toronto (and the rest of Ontario):

Week-ends and holidays: 4.2 ¢/kWh

Weekdays	¢/kWh
7 am to 11 am	7.6¢/kWh
11 am to 5 pm	9.1¢/kWh
5 pm to 10 pm	7.6¢/kWh
10 pm to 7 am	4.2¢/kWh

Conclusions on Smart Meters and Ontario Electricity Pricing

To be honest, based on my gut instinct, I'm calling this a (temporary) stealth price increase.

So what's the next thing he'll come up with ... maybe flying cars. Just 72 hours to go until this miserable cast comes off my foot...

I Hate This Tree - Sometimes

This from a person who really does love trees. At our cabin up north we are surrounded by trees and rarely cut one down. Of course they are what I consider to be real trees, sugar maples and birches. The tree on our front lawn, less than twenty feet from the foundation of our house is a different matter. This is a Norway Maple, which is really a weed tree. I have been told by more experienced people that they should never be planted within a hundred feet of a house. The problem with Norway Maples are their very invasive root system and when you combine that with an old house and clay pipes you inevitably run into trouble.

Thanks to our tree we have had two sewer backups in our basement and the cost of replacing all the pipes from clay to plastic was not a cheap thing to undertake trust me,never mind the cost of replacing carpeting and damaged furnishings. Now if the tree had belonged on the city side of the line some of the cost would have been shared. We lost that battle once and won it once. The tree is either ours or theirs and the difference is in inches. Last year when I wanted the tree pruned of dead wood, it was ours. We hired someone to come and do it for us since the city wouldn't, it was conveniently ours again.

Imagine my shock this morning when this big beast rumbled up the street, stopped in front of my house and three young men jumped out and perused my/their tree.

It's really a big tree.

Seems this year it's their again and they were coming to trim. I wonder if the fact that last week we had hurricane strength winds and a couple of big trees on the street came down had anything to do with it? Either way, I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, go for it boys said I, it's saving me about six hundred bucks. I did ask if they wouldn't consider cutting it down altogether but was politely rebuffed. Too bad, it really is a weed, a sixty year old weed. They did a great job with the cleanup though. The weed looks regal again.

So now were at two for all with the city. Next time they will tell me it's mine again. This year I don't mind paying my property taxes quite so much.