The decision to spend 741 million Canada Pension Plan (CPP) payroll-deducted dollars from hard-working Canadians to purchase industrial wind turbines, risks the pensions of Canadians.
The CPP tax was recently increased by the Trudeau liberals, rising to 11.9% in 2019.
The industrial wind turbine scheme and the Liberal ‘greed’ Energy Act have been mired in controversy, including a criminal investigation that led to the conviction of a top ranked government official. According to Ontario’s Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk, Ontarians paid $37 billion above the market price for electricity over the past eight years, and face an additional $133-billion overpayment by 2032. Ontario is now burdened with the continent’s highest electricity rates.
On April 2nd, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) announced that it signed an agreement to acquire a portfolio of six operating wind and solar power projects located in Ontario from foreign-owned NextEra Energy Partners, LP (NYSE: NEP) for $741 million. The deal includes the assumption of approximately $882 million in existing debt.
What the pension plan purchase means for working Ontario electricity ratepayers is even higher rates. Their own CPP tax dollars are being used to purchase something that is causing the spike in electricity prices. High energy costs result in unemployment. Ontario has 713,300 low-income households, representing almost 16% of residential ratepayers in the province.
This purchase goes against the mandate of the CPP Investment Management Board. The Board is required to act in the best interests of the beneficiaries of the Canada Pension Plan. As noted by Wind Concerns Ontario, the coalition of more than 30 community groups and hundreds of families and individuals concerned about the impacts of industrial-scale wind power development, “Why buy wind power projects when Ontario has a surplus of power and when wind power is a factor in higher electricity bills leading to energy poverty?”
Worse, in 2017, Ontario sent 8,242 GWh (gigawatts) of cheap electricity to the State of New York at a loss of $700 million. In other words, Ontario electricity ratepayers are subsidizing our American competitors, by about $700 million to take away Canadian jobs.
The four NextEra wind turbine projects being purchased in Ontario (Summerhaven, Jericho, Bluewater and Conestogo) have been the source of more than 120 official reports of excessive noise and vibration, some including staff notes on health impacts, made to the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change. The CPP Investment Board was established by an Act of Parliament in December 1997.
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