MPP McDonell commented: “The magnitude of the waste, deception and scandals this Government has presided over is outrageous. As the elected members of the Legislature, it is our duty to hold this Liberal Government accountable. At a time when over half a million Ontarians are out of work and businesses are struggling, the Liberals choose to use any tactic to keep in power. It has been over a year since the Legislature began investigating the 2011 power plant cancellations and the unacceptable waste of taxpayer’s dollars that followed, along with the exposed scandal in E-Heath & ORNGE. Following a year of relevant documents being hidden and – as revealed – destroyed, selective amnesia by public officials and Liberal insiders and a four month prorogation, Ontarians are fed up with a Government they cannot trust. It is time for the Legislature to express what Ontarians have made clear: the Liberal Government has lost the Province’s confidence”.

During the vote on today’s Opposition Day Motion the NDP caucus joined the Government in voting against it. MPP Jim McDonell commented: “If the NDP say they can’t trust the Government, the solution is to vote to change the Government. Instead, they are supporting the most scandal-ridden Government in Ontario’s history. Ontarians will take notice. This Liberal Government cannot be trusted to tell the truth on their taxpayer-funded seat-saver program in Mississauga and Oakville, let alone stewarding Ontario’s finances for another year”.

The Budget forecasts a deficit larger than all other Provinces and Territories combined, and a total growing debt load that translates today to over $20,000 for every man, woman and child in Ontario.

MPP McDonell stated: “The Liberals are increasing the debt by increasing spending in almost all ministries. When you are in a hole, you stop digging and you work to get yourself out. The Liberals haven’t grasped this elementary truth.”

MPP McDonell insists Ontario can do better: “Kathleen Wynne decided to continue down the failed McGuinty path to debt and stagnation. Tim Hudak and the Ontario PC Caucus have outlined a clear plan to achieve fiscal health and kick-start economic growth in our Province. We must reduce the size and cost of Government, reduce the tax and regulatory load on private-sector job creators, reform our labour markets and place affordable energy at the heart of an economic growth plan. That change has to begin today, and it requires a change in the team that leads Ontario.”

MPP McDonell commented: “The TSSA plays a fundamental role in ensuring a safe environment for workers and consumers alike. To be effective, the agency must build on approved standards and best practices in Ontario and around this very competitive world.  Businesses are reporting of having to meet arbitrary and unpublished standards.  The installation of equipment that is used throughout the rest of Canada and by our American neighbours is road blocked with red tape and extreme delays.  Local contractors have recounted instances of local industries being frustrated and finally giving up, relocating the equipment out of the province and taking the jobs with them.  The current practices of the TSSA are driving up compliance costs without achieving any tangible improvement in worker and consumer safety and stifling innovation.  It’s no wonder why we are losing so many manufacturing jobs to our neighbours, when you add the unrealistic TSSA compliance costs to the high energy and WSIB rates and property taxes, you are no longer competitive.”

Bill 61 makes several provisions regarding technical standards and consumer safety, including:

•  A cap on hourly rates charged by TSSA inspectors, tied to compensation levels in the private sector for equivalently qualified technicians.

• Allowing the Minister to reward law-abiding businesses by enrolling them into a rigorous self-inspection program

• Making experience as a TSSA license holder a mandatory prerequisite for being an inspector

• Ordering the publication of all criteria for initial inspections, ensuring all license holders are inspected based on the same set of criteria.

• Ordering license holders to be made aware of all the pass and fail criteria for their upcoming TSSA inspections.

• Avoiding Ontario equipment being left in a legal vacuum if the certifying standard is withdrawn by the standard-setting body

• Allowing stakeholders to petition the TSSA for adopting or allowing the use of standards that are more appropriate for evaluating inventions and foreign equipment.

MPP McDonell stated: “Ontario’s businesses and tradespeople deserve a safety agency that has the interests of all players as their priority.  This Bill gives the TSSA the necessary flexibility to achieve a truly made-in-Ontario standard and safety framework while remaining a strict enforcer. Kick-starting job creation in this Province begins with allowing businesses to work, innovate, expand, diversify and serve consumers. I have listened to stakeholders and hope to see Bill 61 examined at Committee soon.”

The CEO of the Ontario Power Authority revealed today the cost of scrapping the Oakville gas plant was $310 Million.

OPA CEO Colin Anderson made the startling revelation during his testimony at a justice committee hearing into the government’s decision to cancel the plants in Oakville and Mississauga just before the 2011 provincial election.

“That’s almost eight times more than the McGuinty-Wynne Liberals had been telling hard working taxpayers,” said MPP McDonell.

“Combine that with the $275 Million that has been tagged to the Mississauga plant and taxpayers are on the hook for well over half a billion dollars. Enough is enough,” MPP McDonell concluded.

The Ontario PC Caucus tabled a non-confidence motion in the Legislature and are requesting a debate, presenting supporting petitions from Ontarians.

Following the Auditor-General’s report into the Mississauga power plant cancellation and explosive testimony by Ministry of Energy staffers at Justice Committee, the PC Caucus has decided to table a Want of Confidence motion in the Legislature.

MPP McDonell commented: “Ontarians deserve the truth about the politically-motivated cancellations, done in a desperate attempt to win an election and at the expense of the taxpayers of Ontario, estimated to be over $1 billion.  Unfortunately, the McGuinty-Wynne Liberals are more focused on protecting their political skins, than looking after the best interests of the province.”

Committee hearings into the cancellation scandal questioned former Liberal political staffers under oath, who claimed to have little to no recollection about the details or the costs the cancellations.

MPP McDonell stated: “These insiders could not even remember making a $721 million settlement offer for the Oakville power plant cancellation, until emails were produced with their names on them. The McGuinty-Wynne Liberals are suffering a severe case of collective selective amnesia. This is just another example of the lengths that the Liberals are willing to go to protect their Party and cling to power”.

The Want of Confidence Motion requires the consent of all three parties’ House Leaders to come to a debate.

MPP McDonell concluded: “It is abundantly clear that the McGuinty-Wynne Liberals, after a decade of squandering public money, have lost the confidence of Ontarians. No-one trusts them to administer this Province with integrity, honesty or accountability. It is time for Ontarians to finally have a say on this Government through a confidence motion”

MPP Jim McDonell highlights enough is enough: “It is time to stop the McGuinty-Wynne Liberals’ decade-long record of mismanagement, waste of public funds and deception.  Over the last few months, we witnessed their deliberate attempts to hide information from Ontarians regarding the ORNGE, E-Health and gas plant scandals. The Auditor-General showed how they neglected and ignored Ontarians’ best interest for their own political objectives and wasted taxpayer’s dollars on a rushed cancellation that put the Government and the OPA at the mercy of a contractor and that may cost, according to independent witnesses, over $1 billion. This comes on the heels of Liberal economic figures being soundly refuted, from the empty promise of 40,000 green jobs to the total cost of cancelling the Mississauga and Oakville power plants. Meanwhile, we’ve lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs and the debt has doubled. Enough is enough.”

Although the debate of a Want of Confidence motion requires the consent of all House Leaders, MPP McDonell is adamant the debate must occur: “Ontarians and the Legislature cannot believe anything this Government says anymore. Every Government action is called into question, suspecting ulterior motives. This Government has clearly and utterly lost the trust and confidence of the whole Province and of this Legislature. If we don’t hold the Liberals to account now for this dishonesty and callous disregard for how tax dollars are spent, we will surely see more of it from them.  Ontario is on the wrong track and can no longer afford the McGuinty-Wynne Government putting the interests of the Liberal Party ahead of solving our jobs and debt crisis.  Which is why we will be tabling a no-confidence motion and asking for the support of the NDP. Ontarians no longer trust this Liberal Government to lead them back to prosperity. It’s time to change the leadership that runs the Province. Ontarians deserve better!”

MPP Jim McDonell commented: “The McGuinty-Wynne Liberals are so focused on maintaining their power that they are willing to put their political interests ahead of the interests of taxpayers. Instructing the OPA, whose negotiating position they weakened by rushing the cancellation announcement, to stop construction at any cost in Mississauga in order to save their own seats is an unacceptable misuse of taxpayer’s money. And now that she has been caught red-handed, Premier Wynne and the Liberals are doing everything to avoid accountability. Their behavior is indicative of systemic dishonesty.”

During the last session of the Legislature, the Government withheld documents demanded of it by a Committee investigating the cancellations. The matter was referred to the Speaker, who ruled the Minister of Energy could be held in contempt of Parliament. Former Premier Dalton McGuinty then prorogued the Legislature and shut down all investigations until after the Liberal leadership convention.

MPP McDonell stated: “This is a matter of public money being deliberately wasted for partisan political gain. I find it scandalous that the Legislature is being deliberately obstructed by this government in its attempts to get the truth. The Premier is protecting her own party while taxpayers watch their money being wasted – it is unacceptable.”

MPP McDonell stated: “Jamieson’s testimony confirmed that Cabinet was fully briefed on the costs associated with the cancellation of the Mississauga and Oakville gas plants. For the second day in a row, Premier Kathleen Wynne and Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli have been caught red-handed. They have denied knowing the costs above those given to them by the Ontario Power Authority (OPA), when in fact they were fully briefed in Cabinet about all costs.”

Jamieson’s testimony follows yesterday’s Auditor General’s Report, which revealed glaring misuse and waste of public money during the cancellations and that the OPA was fully aware Ontarians would be on the hook for at least $275 million to cancel the Mississauga gas plant.  The Auditor-General’s report on the Oakville plant relocation, which expert witnesses have estimated to be over $800 million, is not expected until this July.

MPP McDonell continued: “Last week we received documents with Premier Wynne’s signature tying her to the Oakville gas plant decision and today, Jamieson confirmed that Premier Wynne would have been briefed in Cabinet about the costs on a regular basis. There is undeniable evidence that Premier Wynne was involved in the gas plant cancellations. With the evidence mounting, her continued attempts to deny any involvement in or knowledge of this fiasco are deplorable.”

MPP McDonell concluded: “It’s time for Premier Wynne to come clean with Ontarians and stop using every trick in the book to deny her involvement and shield those responsible for this travesty from being held to account.”

MPP Jim McDonell commented: “The decisions to cancel the Mississauga and Oakville power plants were purely political – it was a maneuver to save vulnerable Liberal seats in the GTA. The Auditor-General highlights some unacceptable examples of wasted public funds. For instance, the Government had no cancellation clause in its Mississauga contract with Eastern Power. In order to persuade Eastern Power to stop construction, the Government and the OPA agreed to settle an unrelated claim by Eastern Power regarding the Keele Valley methane plant. Despite legal opinions that damages could not amount to more than $7 million in the Keele Valley case, the Government and the OPA paid more than $15 million to settle the issue, writing $5 million off as a pre-payment for power they knew would never be generated. In another instance, an employee described as an “administrative assistant” was paid $110,000 per year without any tangible payroll or T4 records for the Auditor-General to see.”

MPP McDonell highlighted the ultimate bearer of all costs related to the cancellation: “The Auditor-General clearly identifies that the OPA was under intense pressure to halt construction in Mississauga at any cost. That is, at any cost to the Ontario taxpayer.”

The report states the OPA considered the option of building the plant without operating it, and found it to have potentially been the cheapest one, “but rejected it because of the difficulty of convincing the community that the plant would not operate and because the Government would have been seen as having paid money for nothing” – wrote Auditor-General Jim McCarter. Furthermore, the OPA admitted the power produced by the Mississauga plant would not have been needed “until at least 2018”.

MPP Jim McDonell stated: “Through their incompetence in contracting and cavalier attitude to public money, the Liberal Government placed themselves in a vulnerable position at the mercy of Greenfield and Eastern Power. As a result, the Auditor-General clearly states the contractors will make a higher return on investment once the plant is moved to Lambton, while the Ontario taxpayer is stuck with a massive cancellation bill. Moreover, despite Greenfield being offered capital by Canadian companies to finance the Mississauga gas plant, they chose a US lender to which we shall repay $59 million borrowed by Greenfield plus $98 million in lost interest and penalties. Ontarians should be appalled that this Liberal Government allowed such a travesty to happen.”

MPP Jim McDonell remarks that the report confirms previous findings by the Auditor-General: “The evidence against the failed Liberal policy experiment at the expense of Ontario ratepayers is piling up. In 2011, the Auditor-General found that no economic impact study was done prior to the Green Energy Act being implemented, and that the much-touted “green” jobs would be temporary. Adding insult to injury, the Feed-In-Tariff program continues to overpay for energy we do not need and have to offload to our neighbours, at a huge cost.”

Among other findings, the Fraser report indicates over 80% of wind power production was unneeded, as it occurred in off-peak hours and cost $200 million to offload.

MPP McDonell offers a succinct summary of the current policy: “The Liberals are paying money we don’t have, for energy we don’t need, produced by turbines local residents don’t want. The report highlights cheaper alternatives, such as retrofitting coal plants, would have delivered the same improvement in air quality at a fraction of the cost. In the meantime, residential ratepayers are being forced out of their homes by skyrocketing rates, predicted to increase another 43% by 2014. Job-creators in the manufacturing sector are forced to close up shop or are leaving the Province. We need urgent reform in our energy sector to stop our Province being bled dry.”

The Ontario PC Party submitted proposed legislation to tackle the increasing cost of energy. It includes cancelling the FIT program and returning local decision-making power to municipalities regarding the approval of new renewable energy projects such as wind turbines.

“Energy is not a social policy playground – it’s the lifeblood of economic prosperity. It’s time to treat it as such” – MPP McDonell concluded.