By Ross Ayotte
Is Premier Wynne's new year's resolution again to continue to take more money out of our pockets as the cap and trade tax starts on just about everything we buy on Jan 1, 2017? We already pay HST on just about everything we buy thanks to the Liberals.
Premier Wynne is imposing a hidden 4.3 cent a litre gas tax which includes home heating oil, then she is charging HST on top of the gas tax.
When the Liberals announced their 87 billion dollar hydro upgrades in 2007 it had very little to do with the environment, as a spokesperson for former energy minister Brad Duguid had stated, even if Quebec hydroelectric power is clean energy. We won't purchase the power because it won't create jobs in Ontario, so Ontario is going to invest 9 billion dollars to produce 1.5 per cent of our power by solar by 2030 and develop a solar industry in Ontario.
While the Liberal's were boasting this would create 50 thousand jobs. other experts had stated that for every green job created, 3-4 other jobs are lost. Also, the liberals ignored data from the experts that said hydro rates would rise and greenhouse gas reduction may not even occur under their wind and solar power agenda.
Premier Wynne finally acknowledged the Liberals messed up in their hydro plan. so she decided to give us different forms of hydro rebates which will get added on to our predicted provincial debt of 370 billion dollars by 2020. I would also like to note when the Liberals took office our provincial debt was 138 billion dollars.
The other things that don't make any sense are, we export power to Quebec, Manitoba, and the USA at a major loss - also on March 4th, 2016 the OPG released a report that said in 2014-2015 the OPG spilled water or diverted water at our Ontario hydroelectric dams which would be equivalent to 3.2 terawatts of power to fully supply 350 thousand homes in each year which we had to pay for.
Now Premier Wynne has purchased 2 terawatts of un-needed power a year for 7 years from Quebec. The Liberals should have bought cheap Quebec hydro 10 years ago so we're not buying un-needed power now and exporting more surplus power due to the intermittent power produced by wind and solar, which has to be backed up by gas and nuclear plants which make the grid impossible to manage efficiently. Remember Premier Wynne has been in cabinet since the start of this crisis and now Premier Wynne is imposing a cap & trade tax (cash grab) on us which some experts say will have little effect on the environment.
Ross Ayotte
Smiths Falls Ont 613-283-8244
