A Brief Note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper
Despite daily hammering from Ontario’s New Democrat and Conservative parties and a recent report from the province’s non-partisan Financial Accountability Office warning that a sell-off of shares of Hydro One may get Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government some fast money but will end up costing provincial taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year in the long run, Wynne appears determined to move ahead with this hair brain scheme.
It’s like Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is going rogue on us.
Wynne insists she needs up-front cash from the sale of this utility which, so long as it remains in public hands, generates more than $700 million annually in revenue (no wonder private investors are chomping at the bit to get a piece of the action), to pay down the province’s debt and cover the cost of some infrastructure projects.
If the province is that strapped for cash, why not do the courageous thing and raise income taxes, which is at least a progressive tax based on a person’s ability to pay rather than slam people on lower and fixed incomes with another hike in their hydro bills and other user fees that always hit ;people struggling to keep a roof over their heads the hardest?
Instead, we have someone who seemed intelligent and well-meaning when she took over Ontario’s top job from from a scandal-ridden Dalton McGuinty two years ago now behaving like a crackhead who’s taken to hocking the good china and silverware to feed their habit. It’s good for a few more hits but at the end of it all, the cupboards are bare and it’s almost always the rest of the family (meaning the rest of us, in the case of this Hydro One scheme) who suffer the most.
As of this third of November 2015, Wynne is reportedly only a day or two away from offering the first shares of Hydro One to the private market and the Council of Canadians – an Ottawa-based public interest group – is urging us all to send a message to the premier pull the plug on this scheme and keep hydro in Ontario public.
Find out how you can send that message to Wynne by clicking on the following link for the Council of Canadians – https://secure.canadians.org/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1899&ea.campaign.id=39305 .
We have only two options as citizens in this province – Act now to stop this sell-off or pay – big time in the pocketbook- later!
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