Ontarians aren’t just imagining it: Electricity prices in the province are soaring. Prices jumped by 15.7 per cent over the past year, according to Statistics Canada’s consumer price index, about eight times faster than overall inflation. Bank of Montreal chief economist Doug Porter published this chart showing just how far hydro rates have diverged from other prices in the province.

Chart: Bank of Montreal “Meantime, electricity prices in the rest of the country have posted average annual gains quite close to the overall inflation rate over these periods (i.e., roughly 2 per cent per year),” Porter wrote. “In Ontario, only three other categories in the CPI have risen faster than electricity since 2002 — water charges, home insurance and cigarettes. But in the past seven years, nothing has risen faster than electricity prices.” Ontario’s prices are being driven up by a number of factors, including subsidies for the province’s green energy program. The Liberal government of Premier Kathleen Wynne in recent years managed to eliminate the use of coal as a source of electricity.