[mikepurvis]

Yup, I'm in Ontario too. Fundamentally the issue is that electricity is an essential service, much of the demand is inelastic, and most of the costs are fixed. This is why you have embarrassing situations like having to raise rates to cover those fixed costs because everyone did too good a job of conserving [1].

But it's also why this kind of service is a good fit for a government monopoly. And if that means that some of the mostly-fixed-costs end up covered by the general tax base, that's fine with me: the general tax base is taken on a progressive model where the wealthy pay more into it, and there isn't really a good way to make the wealthy pay a different rate for power (yes, I'm on the upper end of middle class, and I absolutely deserve to pay more for these things than someone else who is just scraping by— not just more because I use more, but also more on a per-kWh basis).

[1]: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/demand-s...