Ontario NDP Leader schooled on energy policy by teenager
A Sunday afternoon discussion with teenage environmentalists turned into a testy debate for Howard Hampton after the NDP leader was derided over his energy plan.
Billed as a “roundtable discussion,” the carefully coordinated event took place on the roof of a downtown co-op, with the building’s rooftop garden and Lake Ontario as a backdrop.
Mr. Hampton opened the event by reiterating his party’s promise not to build new nuclear plants if elected, a point he had emphasized during an earlier rally in Ottawa.
But the NDP leader was forced to drop his message of the day by Nick Annejohn, a 17-year-old high school student. The Guelph resident said it was “a terrible contradiction” that the NDP want to both cut electricity rates and promote energy conservation.
“It’s absurd to propose to further subsidize electricity, which will encourage increased consumption, which means your promise to close the coal plants will be impossible and just as empty as [Dalton] McGuinty’s promise in 2003,” Mr. Annejohn said.
October 20th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Obviously, this young fellow is a little too ‘ivory tower minded’ and doesn’t understand the government’s job. Governments have lots of tools to use to promote the environment, like conservation, tax cuts on certain goods, redemptions, etc.
People shouldn’t suffer when we have tools to be environmentally sound while providing for the general welfare of society of businesses.
I guess Enron scamming California was a Green’s dream as well. I was being sarcastic there, but we would feel the same hardship.
I’d like to add this—-
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But Mr. Annejohn said the NDP leader’s position defied “simple economics.”
“If electricity is cheaper, companies will use more electricity, they will automate more and they will not need to hire as many people,” he said. “If companies pay they real cost for electricity, then there will be more employment and less energy consumption.”
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The market needs a regulating hand. I hope this young fellow discovers the work of another economist who despised phrases like “simple economics” and “the market” and “laissez-faire”, someone by the name of John Maynard Keynes. The market is itself most inefficent, and hurtful to people. We have government for _a reason_.
Do we have to go through yet another Great Depression (kids these days have it too good), all in the name of ‘the market’?