Rising Electricity Costs and Declining Employment in Ontario’s Manufacturing Sector /

Notably, the paper manufac- turing and iron and steel sectors, the two most electricity-intensive sectors in Ontario prior to the big price increases, shrank the most: the manufacturing sector by 32% and the iron and steel sector by 25%. [...] The second section looks at the importance of the manufacturing sector in Ontario and compares it with other jurisdictions, then examines the evolution of the main performance indicators of Ontario’s manufacturing sector and its subsectors over the past few years. [...] As is shown, while large consumers in Ottawa and Toronto experienced spikes in overall electricity costs of 53% and 46%, respectively, between 2010 and 2016, the average increase in electricity costs in the other Canadian cities included in the survey was only 14%. [...] While the survey methodologies of Hydro-Québec and the EIA differ, making direct comparison difficult, these discrepancies indicate that there may be variations within states that affect the interpretation of US city costs in table 1. In addition to having some of the highest electricity costs in North America, electri- city costs in the two Ontario cities included in table 1 are also among the fa [...] Cost of electricity to class A and class B customers in Ontario The data reported by Hydro-Québec and the Ontario government do not provide the differences in electricity costs faced by the two classes of Ontario industrial electri- city customers.