The Green Energy Act stripped Ontarians of their right to appeal decisions on locating energy facilities.

Former premier Dalton McGuinty told a legislative committee this week that “there was a faulty selection process for gas plant sites and they were wrongly located and had to be shut down.”

But that faulty process was the result of his much-ballyhooed Green Energy Act. And the cost of the faulty process and the subsequent shutdown of the Oakville and Mississauga sites will be $585 million or more.

The Green Energy Act, passed in 2009, was designed to encourage the generation and distribution of energy from green sources. But, alarmingly, it also overrode existing laws and regulations — including the Environmental Assessment Act — that could possibly prevent or restrict the green energy production. In other words, the act stripped Ontarians of the legal protections they believed they had, as well as their right to appeal decisions concerning the location of energy facilities. Nor, significantly, did the act contain any provision for further review or approval of site selection by the provincial cabinet.

The act includes a section to encourage more small-scale generation, including gas-fired generating plants, with sites chosen by the Ontario Power Authority (OPA). The two sites selected — without any environmental assessment review — were in Oakville and Mississauga. Given their urban location, it should not have been a surprise that residents were concerned about air pollution and safety risks; well-financed and well-organized community groups opposing the two sites soon sprang up.

Had the Green Energy Act not overridden public oversight during the site-selection process, public concerns could have been expressed earlier and perhaps the whole mess could have been avoided. Instead, by the time the public realized what was happening, contracts had already been signed and construction was well under way for the Mississauga site. And given the lack of avenues of appeal, the government’s only recourse to appease public anger (and save vulnerable Liberal seats in the looming election) was to cancel the Oakville site in October 2010 and Mississauga in September 2011.

Now we know the cost of cancellation — $585 million or more. The result will be higher hydro rates and taxes for Ontarians.

It gets worse.

The Green Energy Act also gave the energy minister the authority to establish the feed-in-tariff program (FIT) for renewable energy to encourage the development of solar energy sites and wind farms. Again, all restrictions were set aside — no external environmental assessment nor review by cabinet.

And as with the gas plants, opposition has centred on site selection and environmental concerns. To say nothing of high costs.

As of May 1, residential customers pay about 8 cents per kilowatt-hour for energy, plus other charges for regulation and debt retirement. Only 3 cents of that cost is for actual energy. The other 5 cents go to the so-called Global Adjustment Fund, which includes payments to producers with special contracts, including one nuclear generator, coal plants that are being shut down, and the FIT program for wind and solar energy.

The result is that Ontario electricity rates, at one time among the lowest in North America, are now some of the highest. Ontario residential customers are paying about three times more for electricity than they did when McGuinty took office. Ontario industry, which used to benefit from low electricity costs, is suffering.

McGuinty has admitted mistakes and told the committee that “we will never do that again.” Well, McGuinty is gone, but the Green Energy Act is still law. Premier Kathleen Wynne must make a change.

Andy Frame is a consultant in the electrical power industry. Formerly he was a senior adviser on electric utilities for the Ontario energy ministry, a municipal hydro chairman and chair of the Utility Association.