First Question - Why is Ontario insistent on building its own nuclear power plants?

I live in Toronto, province of Ontario. For the last 20 years or more our provincial governments have known that we need to add to the electrical generating capacity so that we can have reliable electricity and so that the province can continue to grow and attract business. Corporations tend to want reliable sources of reasonably-priced power.

But, in all that time, no one has done anything. Governments have come and gone, all of them have acknowledged that something needs to be done, but nada. Building power plants is messy, there's lots of consulting, it's expensive and most of all, it's politically unpopular because no one wants a power plant in their backyard. So, behind the scenes, things have been held together by scotch tape. On hot summer days, we buy expensive, dirty coal-generated power on the open market to keep the lights on. For the last few summers, we've been lucky because of the relatively mild weather. Now, the current Liberal government is getting ready to do something. First, they're encouraging the electrical utilities to come up with programs that promote conservation. Good idea.

Then, they are going to legislate that small independent power producers can generate their own power for their own use (mostly solar and wind), and sell the rest back to the grid at preferred rates. Another good idea, but expensive to implement (power system was designed as a one-way system from the big generator to you - it will take some work to get it to smoothly accept power into the grid from many small providers). They are also encouraging, hopefully with some financial incentives, the building of commercial wind farms and other "green" sources of energy.

But at the same time, they are getting ready to announce that to do the real heavy lifting, we will have to build one or more nuclear stations. Although this is not popular with the environmentalists, they will grudgingly acknowledge that conservation and wind farms alone won't deliver the MW we need.

So here comes my question.....

Our neighouring province, Quebec has an excess of water-generated hydro-electric power for sale. In fact, the north eastern States are set to sign long-term (25 or 30 year) contracts with Quebec for power. For them, it's green (no smokestacks, no nuclear waste to contend with), it's dependable, a long-term contract makes cost predictable, and a reliable supplier is delivering.

So why the heck doesn't Ontario do the same? It never comes up in discussions. I've never seen it mentioned in the media. We would likely have to build some transmission lines to carry the power, and no they're not cheap, but we'll likely need those for our own power stations too.

So what's the deal? Do we feel better building it ourselves? Don't trust Quebec? Why are we not talking to Quebec to enter into a predictable contract for power coming from stations that are already built? Why do we want to go through a painful, unpredictable process of building our own? Anyone?