NAL more on gas plants,
More Gas From Queen’s Park On Cost Of Gas-Fired Plants
A Brief Foreword by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper
In the months leading up to the last Ontario election in the fall of 2011, large numbers of residents living in the Greater Toronto Area communities of Mississauga and Oakville were expressing their anger at the then Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty over proposals to locate two gas-fired energy plants in their communities.
Ontario Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne can never seem to get past the costly mess her predecessor, Dalton McGuinty, made of unplugging two gas-fired energy plant proposals in the Greater Toronto Area.
The opposition Conservatives and NDP plugged in to this opposition by each saying, in so many words, that they would make those proposals go away if they won the next provincial election. McGuinty beat them to the punch by pulling the plugs on those power plant proposals at a cost to Ontario taxpayers, as we now know from an Auditor General’s report released this October 8th, of $675 million and counting.Of course, there is no reason to believe that the cost to Ontario taxpayers would be any less if the Conservatives or NDP prevailed in the last election and followed through on their pledge to unplug these two proposals.
And yet, how could the Conservatives and NDP resist the chance to pile on the still governing Liberals this October 8th when Auditor Gneral Bonne Lysyk released her disturbing report on this disgusting matter, which had far more to do with crass politics than it had to do with whether or not these gas plants would pose a health threat to the people of Mississauga or Oakville.
However here for your information, are the responses to the Auditor General’s report, circulated to the media from the Conservatives and NDP. We begin below with Tim Hudak’s Conservative response and conclude with the response from Andrea Horwath’s NDP.
LIBERALS HID BILLION-DOLLAR COST OF GAS PLANT CANCELLATION
From the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, October 8th, 2013
TORONTO – “The Auditor General confirmed what we have been saying all along – that the Liberals have been hiding the true cost of this cancellation from taxpayers,” said PC MPP Lisa MacLeod, the Ontario PC Energy Critic.
“We finally have the number Kathleen Wynne’s known all along,” said MacLeod. “She co-chaired the campaign that cancelled the plant, and signed the document authorizing the cancellation. But she has refused to tell the people of Ontario how much taxpayer money her government spent cancelling gas plants.”
“Wynne’s government deleted emails, misled the people of Ontario, and focused on their political priorities rather than getting this province back to work.”
“Kathleen Wynne talks about being a different kind of leader, but this is straight from the McGuinty playbook,” continued MacLeod. “Kathleen Wynne and her government wasted this money to protect their own political interests, and spent the last two years covering it up. She should be ashamed.”
As recently as her appearance at Justice Committee on April 30th, 2013 Premier Wynne was telling Ontarians the cost of cancelling the Oakville power plant was $33M. To see video of the testimony please use the following link: http://cl.ly/1u3Q0T183S23
Auditor puts cost of cancelling private power deal in Oakville twenty times higher than Liberal claim –
Crass attempt to win seats in Oakville and Mississauga will cost public over a billion dollars
From the Office of Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath, October 8th, 2013
Queen’s Park – New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath says today’s scathing report by Ontario’s Auditor General confirms that the cost of Liberal attempts to hold onto power by cancelling private power deals in Oakville is twenty times higher than Liberals had claimed – with a price tag now running to $815 million.
“For people struggling through tough times, the scale of the waste just takes your breath away. With one crass political move the Liberals spent enough money to hire 18,000 nurses or provide home care for 247,000 seniors,” said Horwath.
In her report today, Ontario’s Auditor General found that the decision to cancel the Oakville private power deal could cost as much as $815 million. Moreover, the Auditor found that the Liberals, in a desperate attempt to craft a clean election message and avoid conflict before they headed to the polls in 2011, drove up costs by promising the private power operator, TransCanada, that they would receive compensation, even though the government had no obligation to do so.
“It’s clear the Liberals were willing to say anything and do anything to hold onto power,” said Horwath. “They made a crass decision to hold onto power and they didn’t spare any expense. Unfortunately, they were spending the people’s money, and now the public is stuck with the bill.”
Horwath noted that New Democrats have been pushing for the government to provide details of the cost of scrapping the private power deal in Oakville for over two years, and that the Liberals at Queen’s Park had consistently blocked Freedom of Information requests, dodged questions in the House and rebuffed efforts to have the Auditor investigate.
“At every stage in this saga, the Liberals have scrambled to hide costs, offered bogus estimates and hid the facts. Now we know costs are twenty times higher than their initial estimate. This government wasted Ontarians’ hard-earned money, and they didn’t have the decency to be honest about it,” said Horwath.
The government cancelled the Oakville gas plant in 2010, mere months after signing the contract. A gas plant in Mississauga was cancelled during the 2011 general election. They claimed that cancellation would cost $190 million, while a 2012 Auditor’s report showed the costs were $275 million.
Fact Check: What could $1.09 billion have bought?
The Liberal government has shown over and over that they put their political self-interest ahead of the needs facing everyday Ontarians. This what $815 million for the Oakville gas plant and $275 for the Mississauga gas plant could have paid for:
• Hire 18,000 nurses
• Provide 247,727 seniors with home care
• Fund a Job Creator Tax Credit for more than 10 years
• Purchase 311 PET scanners
• Build 10,900 units of affordable housing
• Freeze child care fees for 1.2 million families
• Purchase 2,180 new buses for municipalities across Ontario
• Purchase 272 new MRI machines
(Niagara At Large invites you to join in the discussion below, remembering that we only post views from individuals who also share their first and last names.)
Niagara At Large 
While Andrea may be right about the money wasted, she has let Hudak off the hook by not relating the root cause of this waste back to the Harris governments break-up and partial privatization of the goose that used to lay Ontario’s golden eggs, Ontario Hydro.
Had Hydro still existed as the nearly sole generator and distributor of Ontario’s electricity, in the worst case, those gas plants would have been the property of Hydro, therefore could have been cancelled for only double digit millions.
Does Andrea have a short memory or is she beholding to the same corporate interests as the Con’s and Lib’s?
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This is one of those times where I am so angry that I cannot put my thoughts into print. I want to call politicians (of ALL parties) a steady stream of totally gross curse words.
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Dalton and Kathleen would look nice in orange jump suits.
The orange colour would be ironically appropriate in so many ways.
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Only in Canada can you get away with this gross disrespect for our tax dollars scot free.
I have to wonder whether it is because except for the few of us that rant amongst ourselves in blogs like this, people are generally disinterested and don’t get it. You would think there would be a rally or something at Queens Park demanding someone’s head.
Perhaps the citizens of this province got and continue to get what they deserve! Perhaps its because most of us wouldn’t say S&*T even if our mouth was full of it. We are known for complacency and don’t think for a second that all politicians don’t exploit that one way or another.
I am a member of the Canadian Taxpayer Federation. I suggest that all of you join this or a similarly mandated group. It is an easy way to get the message out that government waste can not continue at our expense!
Just sayin……
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While I admire and respect your desire to stop waste, Greg, I believe the CTF is the exact opposite direction to pursue. Their board and regional directors are a who’s who of the business and corporate world. Waste to this organization is any kind of income redistribution. They are anti-union and pro-privatization, which, I pointed out is the corruption at the root of the gas plant scandal. Have you heard of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives? To me this is the most progressive organization acting in taxpayers interest.
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I am aware of the CCPA David and quite frankly some of their ideologies, which we live with through legislation influenced by it, are quite scary. I view that org as people who live in a bubble experimenting with our society. People who have no real experience doing anything other than influencing government with airy fairy pie in the sky ideas and PHILOSOPHIES (never practically applied). Would love to get into details, but time is not on my side today…..
As for the CTF being anti-union….. what`s wrong with that? Unions have outlived their usefulness and now represent malcontents. Their demands are increasingly becoming ridiculous. That`s the elephant in the proverbial room. Unions need to be removed from all public sector services.
Redistribution….. well if we all paid lower taxes isn’t that a good thing for ALL!
As for the CTF being pro-privatization….. they are and they are not. When it comes to key strategic resources they lean towards public control. When it comes to non-key strategic resources of course they lean private. Think about it. Let a government run it and it will cost four times as much to build and cost the taxpayer four times as much on their bill regardless of the nature of service. Government employees are not known for delivering quality solutions and services at a realistic cost. Frankly I would outsource as much as I could. LCBO, Brewers, Waste…….
Just sayin….
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I can only agree to disagree with your views. I worked for the 1st 11 years of my career for a federal crown corporation and the last 29 years for a share holder owned corporation. There was no difference in the efficiency of the work at my level. However, the pay and benefits were better in the latter. The latter was also non-union. Work place productivity has increased exponentially over the last 50 years, from mom and pop restaurants to multi-national enterprises, due to a revolution in electronics and improved infrastructure. Not even a union hall has an operator to answer the phone for example – push 1, then 2 then 4, etc, etc. Yet pay and job security are dropping like a stone. The problem is everyone is making money off the few who are doing the work. Trade agreements have undermined Cdn unions weapon of last resort; with holding labour. Suddenly Cdn workers now have to compete with low wage nations.
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I appreciate your thoughts on this David. However, I think you kind of supported my position with respect to unions with your comments re: trade agreements.
First off I am not a fan of worker exploitation. The fact that Canadian companies have shipped off jobs to India …… because of the lack of regulations, safety, wages that exist there is in my opinion reprehensible. However they would not have done that if manufacturing in Canada was fiscally feasible. Consider before the last recession that Big Three auto workers were taking down $80K+ per year plus huge benefits packages, plus their productivity was never questioned. I knew guys that would jump the fence and drink at the Duck (if you’re from St. Catharines you know where that is) get caught, but could never be disciplined. I knew just as many that would play the rotating clock me in and out game. How can companies compete with that kind of worker attitude? It was not limited to the big three.
The Unions would defend them and because of their power back in the day, they would not be disciplined. Well those times have changed haven’t they.
We can’t have it both ways I am afraid. I would love to see manufacturing return to Ontario/Canada, but I am afraid it will take more than wage concessions to accomplish that now that companies are so entrenched overseas.
So it is encouraging to me that your experiences were not consistent with mine. Thanks for your thoughts.
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I have spent time on both sides of the fence. Issues like you mention don’t happen if managers, manage. As supervisors we used to be required to document all personnel matters. Of course that didn’t always happen. Grievance procedures require the supervisor back up his accusations from records. No union can defend a worker if the company takes the time to get all their ducks in a row. But discipline and dismissal must be proven like in a court of law.
Indeed production goes off shore to reduce costs. But it also goes off shore for many other reasons like access to larger markets while “Free Trade” deals allow importation to the home market duty free.
I am not a fan of free trade. I believe they are the cause of the free fall our Cdn economy has experienced since the mid 70’s. And from a strategic point of view allowing the exporting of production capacity and means of producing the products necessary for the countries survival, should borders ever suddenly close, is a form of treason.
Canada is one of the few countries in the world with the potential to produce all the country’s basic needs – food, fuel, minerals for machinery production and spare parts.
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