安省自由党彻底破坏了安省电力系统

In politics, as we wrote Wednesday, people get upset about the little things. Remember Bev Oda’s $16 glass of orange juice? In the context of a 12-figure federal budget, or ministerial trips justifiably running into the tens of thousands of dollars, some overpriced OJ hardly mattered. And yet it galled. Small misdeeds are relatable. A big, complicated and massively costly government screw-up, in contrast, sometimes leaves people cold.

让我们来看看以下这件是是否能让你怒发冲冠。上周三，安省审计长指出，从2006年到2014年之间，由于安省自由党的无能和管理不善，安省百姓多付电费$ 370多亿。更有甚者，在未来的18年里，安省百姓将继续充当冤大头，多付电费$ 1,330多亿。

Let’s see if this warms you up. On Wednesday, Ontario’s Auditor-General announced that, between 2006 and 2014, thanks to incompetence and mismanagement on the part of the province’s Liberal government, Ontarians overpaid for electricity to the tune of $37-billion. And over the next 18 years, consumers will be overpaying to the tune of another $133-billion.

让我们来看看这些数字对你来说意味着什么。白白多付$ 1700亿的电费摊到安省每个男女老少身上是$12,326。也就是说，在27年当中，每个安省百姓平均每年多付$ 457。据加拿大统计局的资料，安大略省平均每个家庭有2.6人。那意味着安省的一个普通家庭每年要多付$ 1,188的电费。

Let’s try to put those numbers in context. Electricity overpriced by $170-billion is equivalent to $12,326 in excess costs for every man, woman and child in Ontario. Over 27 years, that averages out to $457 per person, per year. According to Statistics Canada, the average Ontario household has 2.6 people, so for the typical family, we’re talking about a power utility bill roughly $1,188 higher than it should be – every year.

安省的消费者和企业都要为此昂贵的电费买单。而且，企业所支付的昂贵电费最终还是要转嫁到安省百姓头上，即使他们从来没有见到过那些电费单。

 
The inflated costs cover both consumers and business, so some of that shows up not on the consumer’s bill, but on the tab of the province’s businesses, which then pass those costs on to customers.

为什么安大略省的电力如此昂贵？那是由于安大略政府在过去的十年中采用与前苏联相差无几的方式来管理安省的电力市场。即在电力决策上政治挂帅，对电力专家的意见不屑一顾。它故意打破了电力系统的营运规则，造成发电成本疯涨，痨命伤才。更有甚者，安省自由党政府似乎不知道如何解决这些问题，或者他们根本就不想解决这些问题。

 
Why is Ontario’s electricity so costly? Because the Ontario government has for the past decade been running the province’s power sector with something approaching the skill of Soviet commissars. It has politicized decision-making, taking it out of the hands of independent experts. It deliberately broke the system, creating huge new costs without benefits. And it doesn’t seem to know how to fix it, or want to.

例如，审计发现，安省支付风力发电的价格是美国同样电厂的两倍，太阳能发电的价格是美国三倍半。个别案例达到了几乎荒唐的地步: 安省雷湾市的一个生物发电的价格是安省平均电价的25倍。

For example, the auditor finds that the province is paying twice as much for wind power as American utilities, three and a half times as much for solar power and, in the most exceptional incident of economic illogic, has a biomass plant in Thunder Bay producing electricity at 25 times the average price in the rest of the province.

这绝不是$16一杯橙汁的故事。这是你和你的全家今年，明年，未来每年都要买的85杯，每杯$16的橙汁。好好享受这些橙汁吧!因为你每分每秒都在付$16元一杯的橙汁。

No, this isn’t a $16 glass of orange juice. It’s you and your family buying 85 of those $16 orange juices, this year and next year and every year after, forever. Enjoy. You’re paying for it.

编注：以上是加拿大全国发行的最大日报——《环球邮报》2015年12月2日发表的社论。大中报贾宁扬编译。

Note: The Editorial was published by The Globe and Mail on December 2, 2015. Translated by Jack Jia, Chinese News.