It was royally awkward.
Tinkering with a new BlackBerry as she visited Waterloo's Research in Motion facility, the Queen was shown one of the country's brightest hopes for high-tech economic competitiveness. Hours later, as the lights went out on her husband at an awards ceremony in downtown Toronto, she got a taste of what puts a scare into Ontario's business community - and should worry everyone.
Ontario's aging energy infrastructure has enjoyed something of a free pass in recent years, at least publicly. A dip in demand caused by the global recession relaxed the strains on the system. But as the economy rebuilds, the lack of a steady and reliable supply could deter investors and ultimately compromise our quality of life.
The optics of Monday's rush-hour blackout, caused by what was unsettlingly referred to in industry bulletins as "an explosive failure," may have been worse than the reality. Within the energy sector, Etobicoke's Manby Transformer Station had not been considered a particular trouble spot. And failures, even explosive ones, are considered a fairly standard part of the transmission business, albeit ones that might be prevented by a big investment in new technologies.
But the fact that this par-for-the-course meltdown occurred at a facility where most of the circuit breakers are at least 30 years old, and some of them have been operating for more than half a century, was also a reminder that Ontario is making do with an infrastructure that has scarcely been updated in decades. And perhaps, for the vast majority of people who don't spend much time thinking about energy supply so long as the lights are on, it could also be a wake-up call.
The reason that most governments have neglected needed power upgrades is that there's little political upside. Projects are massively expensive, they can easily cause controversy by going over-budget and nobody really celebrates them when they're finished. They also have a tendency, as evidenced by the ongoing brouhaha over plans for a gas-fuelled power plant in Oakville, to upset residents living in close proximity.
As Energy Minister Brad Duguid hastened to argue in an interview on Monday night - which at least suggested some willingness to take responsibility - Dalton McGuinty's Liberals have done more than their predecessors to modernize the system. (Mr. Duguid also contended that recent investments "helped to localize" this outage, and that it might otherwise have been worse.) But nobody familiar with the files could seriously believe that investment is anywhere near where it needs to be - particularly not when the biggest pending investment, a new nuclear reactor for the province's Darlington facility, has seemingly been on the backburner for years.
Unfortunately, the Liberals have also made some decisions that have already helped create a degree of energy-price fatigue. The Green Energy Act, the harmonized sales tax, and the installation of smart meters might all be good policy on their own. Even the apparent growth of an energy bureaucracy, and the high salaries paid to its top executives, might be defensible. But all together, they've given the provincial opposition fodder heading into next year's election, and made Ontarians feel overburdened before some of the heavy lifting on the energy file has even started.
Lasting only an hour or two, Monday's failure might have given Ontarians a little taste of why that heavy lifting is still inescapable. Next time, power might not be restored in time for the state dinner.