Ontario subsidises its citizens’ electricity power bills by $7.3 billion a year from general revenue, an international energy expert has said, contradicting the Coalition’s claim that nuclear reactors would drive power prices down in Australia.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has repeatedly cited the Canadian province as a model for cheaper power prices from nuclear.

“In Ontario, that family is paying half of what the family is paying here in Perth for their electricity because of nuclear power,” Dutton said in March. “Why wouldn’t we consider it as a country?”

In July, Dutton said Canadian consumers paid about one-quarter of Australian prices for electricity.

Professor Mark Winfield, an academic from York University in Canada who specialises in energy and environment, on Monday said the reaction among people in Ontario to the comparison had ranged from disbelief to “you couldn’t make this up”.

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