An energy watchdog is criticizing Ontario for pushing back the closing dates for the province's coal-fired power-generation plants, saying political manoeuvring is harming the public's health.

The criticism comes in response to news that the province is unlikely to close coal-fired plants until 2014, seven years past the original closing date promised by the Ontario Liberals.

When Premier Dalton McGuinty took power, he scrapped the Progressive Conservative's plan to install scrubbers and other emission controls on the two biggest plants, saying the province would instead close them by 2007.

"The Liberals made a promise that they should've realized was just not going to happen," said Tom Adams, executive director of Energy Probe.

Adams said that the province is hurting public health because the insistence that coal plants could be closed earlier meant no investments were made in anti-pollution technology.

Province looks at ways to clean up coal

Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory also slammed the government for delaying the closure of coal plants for the second time. The Liberals first promised to close them by 2007, then changed the date to 2009 and now have delayed it further to 2014.

"They've harmed the health of people in Ontario by not acting sooner and maintaining this political fraud," he said.

But McGuinty said that the province is looking into ways of making the plants cleaner in a way that is a justifiable use of taxpayers' money.

He refused to comment on whether he will revive the Tory plan for outfitting all the coal plants with scrubbers and other anti-pollution equipment.

"We've got to figure out what's the best way to invest dollars given the sequence of projected closings of various coal-fired generators," McGuinty said.

Four of the 12 units at Lambton and Nanticoke, the two biggest plants, have emission controls, he noted.

To retrofit all of the units could cost more than a billion dollars.

Heavy reliance on coal

Adams says he wishes it wasn't the case, but coal is an essential part of the province's electricity supply, and promising to close coal-fired plants by 2007 was never realistic.

Considering the amount of electricity coal plants produce, Adam says, closing them by 2007 would have put out the lights in Ontario much of the time.

He said natural gas is an extremely expensive alternative, while wind power can't provide a reliable substitute.

A 2005 report for the Ontario Ministry of Energy found that 660 people die every year from pollution emitted by the Nanticoke and Lambton plants.