Ontario Giving Away Billions of Dollars in Energy

September 15, 2016

QUEEN’S PARK – Leader of the Official Opposition Patrick Brown is standing up for Ontarians fed up with their outrageous electricity bills and challenging the Premier to stop Ontario’s continued off-loading of excess electricity to competing jurisdictions below its production cost. This practice is resulting in billions of dollars in losses to Ontario ratepayers and taxpayers.

“Let’s pose this question I found on a Liberal math test. If you pay 8.55 cents a kilowatt hour to produce energy in Ontario, and you sell that energy for 2.65 cents a kilowatt hour to New York, Minnesota, Manitoba, and Quebec, how much profit does Ontario make?” said Brown.

In both 2013 and 2014, Ontario gave away $1.2-billion worth of energy to neighbouring states and in 2015 an additional $1.1 billion. In total that represents more than $3-billion over the last 3 years.

“The Liberal government’s mismanagement of the energy sector means we over-pay for electricity we don’t need and can’t store” MPP Jim McDonell commented. “We must then pay our neighbours and competitors to take this excess power away from us. Ontario ratepayers can’t afford their electricity, yet Premier Wynne continues to just add more and more charges onto already unaffordable bills while large, over-paid wind and solar suppliers keep getting contracts. This is unacceptable”

Leader of the Official opposition Patrick Brown demanded the Premier commit to decisive action.

“Will the Premier show some real leadership? Will she promise Ontario that she will stop signing these ludicrous contracts?” Brown asked.