A Commentary by From Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper
For the better part of the past two years since the last Ontario election, all we’ve been hearing from Tim Hudak and his Tea Party Tories is how corrupt and scandalous all of this gas plant crap involving former Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty has been.
Ontario Tory Leader Tim Hudak at recent photo op, with skids of fake Canadian dollars behind him, at rejected Mississauga gas plant site.
It has been scandalous alright, to the tune of more than a billion dollars of our provincial tax money wasted on cancelling two gas-fired energy plants in Mississauga and Oakville because a critical mass of NIMBYs (Not in my backyard people) from those two communities were threatening to dump two of McGuinty’s Liberal MPPs out of office before the last Ontario election. And if the Ontario Provincial Police and others have grounds to charge McGuinty with misappropriating our funds and/or destroying documents that might have shown he did, by all means lay criminal charges against him.
But for the like of Hudak to go on and on and on pressing this issue when he, during the last election, openly promised to cancel these gas-plant proposals, is a joke.
How much did Hudak, who no doubt made these promises to win votes from NIMBYs in that 2011 election, was going to cost him to cancel those gas plants for equally crass political reaons that McGuinty had in mind? Did he think it was going to cost him any less once the building of these facilities got started.
Yet there is Hudak, doing was his ever so nauseating “photo opportunites”, with a bunch of fake piles of dollars in front of the remains of the Mississauga gas plant he too promised to gas, had he won the last 2011 provincial election.
Then there is NDP leader Andrea Horwath, throwing all kinds of scandal/corrupt mud on current Ontario Liberal leader and premier Kathleen Wynne as well – knowing full well, I and I am sure many others suspect – that Wynne was not responsible for anything that McGuinty did. Unless she and Hudak would care to embrace responsibility for all of the crap-ups of former Tory leader Mike Harris or the NDP’s Bob Rae.
In other words, when will we finally hear the end of this gas from Hudak and Horwath in this election. Why not get on to something else, like what you are going to do to make the lives of people – especially our young people – better in Ontario in the challenging times ahead.
(NOW IT IS YOUR TURN. Niagara At Large encourages you to share your views on this post. A reminder that we only post comments by individuals who share their first and last name with them.)
Niagara At Large 
Why can’t Wynne and Howarth shutdown Hudak by crediting the Harris government as the originators of the gas plant scandal. Had Harris not restructured and partly privatized Ontario Hydro – with the help of criminal Enron Corp. – the gas plants, and green power would have been Hydro owned projects. Meaning even if an error was made in their location all government would have to do is direct Hydro to shutdown the project at the loss of millions, not billions.
Also Hydro would have developed green energy without a sweetheart special price for power produced. Somebody please tell me the reason nobody’s jumping on this when Hudak is looking like an alternative to the Libs. by many voters???
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It’s really shocking Doug that you would condone the theft of 1.1 billion dollars of taxpayer money by the Liberals to win the last election. So by your logic, we shouldn’t ask for justice for any crime that’s two years old. Just sweep it under the rug and let it go away.
As for the lame argument that Hudak wanted to cancel the gas plants as well, the PC’s and the NDP were against those plants from the beginning. They didn’t just come out at the last hour to call for their cancellation to win the election. Their opposition was on record way before that.
And then there’s the matter of the cost. The Libs drew up the contracts. They knew the content of the contracts. They signed the contracts. The Auditor General has already informed us that McGuinty could have just let the contracts expire and they wouldn’t have cost us anything. But Dalton knew he was under the gun to get those contracts cancelled before the election to save those seats. He and Wynne (who signed off on them) made the deliberate and conscious choice to STEAL 1.1 billion dollars of taxpayer money in order to cancel those contracts. Wynne has already admitted it was a politically motivated decision.
Really a shame that we can’t count on publications like yours to at least present the truth and let the people decide for themselves, based on the facts, rather than skew the truth and try to influence people that way.
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I agree that all three parties wanted the gas plants to be cancelled. Unfortunately, for the Liberals, it was done under their watch. It is hypothetical to determine whether the cost would have been more or less than it was under the Liberals.
Hudak is going to eliminate the LHIN’s which were initiated during the Harris regime. He wants to return the bureaucracy to Toronto after it has taken 12 years to get them under control. Is Hudak planning to sell another publicly owned business, LCBO, to balance the books as Harris’s sale of the 407? If the 407 were still Government control the provincial deficit would certainly be less than it is.
To keep out Hudak’s tea party Conservatives, Welland and Niagara Falls must support the NDP and St. Catharines support the Liberals. For the residents of Niagara-West Glenbrook they must learn to vote based on today’s condition not vote blindly because their parents and grandparents and… voted that way.
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Look at the source of the Gas Plant crap!! That is what a responsible Opposition or Government-in-waiting is supposed to do. How else can there be any accountability, or any justification?? This editorial must come from the Liberal spin doctors themselves to even question such a stance on behalf of Ontarians. Federal Opposition forces never let up on the Senate shenanigans, so I wouldn’t expect any less tenacity here. “Charges” never seem to happen, but voter backlash can and should. A return to a Liberal government on Election Day is to merely acknowledge that such boondoggling is okay. If the surveys are even close, then it’s all over for Ontario.
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