Almost Six-Hundred Million Dollars And Counting – And Count The Days Left For Ontario’s Kathleen Wynne Liberals In Government

A Brief Commentary by Doug Draper

I was one of those who wanted to give Ontario’s new Liberal premier, Kathleen Wynne, a chance.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne arm and arm with her old boss Dalton McGuinty. So where is the “new government.”

I wanted to give Ontario’s first woman (not to mention openly gay) premier a chance. Not that I based my view on her gender or sexual orientation,

I based it on what I read of Kathleen Wynne and on a couple of one-on-one interviews I did with her, that I found very honest and refreshing, while she was a cabinet minister for the previous premier, Dalton McGuinty.

But it is beginning to look like we can no longer look past a growing scandal that Wynne’s former boss set off.  As much as Wynne’s p.r. flaks may hope we accept her as a premier of a “ new government”, the scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money on killing plans to build two new gas-fired power plants in Oakville and Mississauga is continuing to stick to her shoes, and those of her fellow cabinet and caucus members, like pig manure.

Just this April 30 – the last day of the month when many of the rest of us have to write out a check to pay off our balances of income taxes owed to our federal and provincial governments before midnight – we find out that the cost of scrapping plans to build gas-powered energy plants in Oakville and Mississauga to save a few provincial Liberal seats prior to the last election is closing in on $600 million.

That is right, close to $600 million after we were told by McGuinty before he went out that it was something less than $100 million – as if that wasn’t bad enough.

Now we learn this April 30 from the CEO for the Ontario Power Authority that the real cost of killing the plan for the Oakville gas-fired plant is not $40 million, but a staggering $310 million – more than it would cost to build that new West Lincoln Memorial Hospital in the northwest Niagara community of Grimsby, for example.

That on top of the news we received from Ontario’s Auditor General earlier this April that the real cost of gutting the plans to build a similar plant in Mississauga are closer to $275 million, compared to the $85 million quoted by the Liberal government earlier.

Again, I like Wynne if there was any chance we could move forward with her more progressive ideas for public transit, environmental protection and other matters, without this McGuinty baggage. But there seems no getting away from the McGuinty baggage and good luck winning the next election Kathleen.

Trouble is that Tim Hudak and his warmed over Mike Harris Conservatives is one of the alternatives. What a future?

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