The Conservation Council of Ontario’s polling shows that:

• conservation is important to you (87%)
• you think conservation is good for the environment (86%), the economy and jobs (78%), public health and reduced health care costs (69%) and lowering the cost of living (67%)
• you practice conservation regularly (91%)
• you want to see government leadership for a healthy future. Only 12% want smaller government, and only 14% want lower taxes.

(Sept. 15, 2011, Toronto, ON) Responding to the growing discussion about the future of green energy in Ontario, the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association (OSEA) today unveiled a pair of television advertisements profiling the strengths and benefits of an Ontario-made green energy economy.

No nuclear project in Ontario’s history has ever been com- pleted on time or on budget. Currently, retrofit projects at the Point LePreau Nuclear Station in New Brunswick and

the Bruce Power Station in Ontario are running years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. Ontario ratepayers and taxpayers, who are still facing a mountain of debt from previous nuclear projects, deserve no less than a firm guarantee that they will not be left once again with a vast pile of stranded debt from a Darlington Rebuild Project, particularly when less risky and more financially viable alternatives are readily available to meet our power needs. 

Mr. Tabuns laid out the following key points:

• The province’s current approach places too little emphasis on efficiency and conservation
• Nuclear power consistently goes over budget creating large cost overruns to be paid by the taxpayer or the customer. The current assumption that nuclear remains the source of half of our power needs to change.
• The partial privatization of our electricity system has resulted in “hundreds of millions of dollars being paid to energy traders and producers who game the system.”