Ontario PC leader Patrick Brown is setting his sights on improving the lives of people in Northern Ontario. On top of announcing today that the PC caucus meeting will be held on August 24th and 25th in Timmins, Brown also touched on two topics he views as important to residents. Those topics are reigning in hydro costs, and getting the Ring of Fire development going. Brown says the Liberals have been in government for 14 years, but what has that meant for Northern Ontario?
He says quite simply, after 14 years Northern Ontario families, workers and taxpayers work harder, pay more and get less. Brown says his party is committed to making Northern Ontario opportunities a real priority, which he added the Wynne Liberals have failed to do for far too long. He says one of his first actions as Premier, should the PCs win in the 2018 provincial election, will be to take action on the Ring of Fire. Brown views the chromite mining and smelting development project as a tremendous opportunity.
When it comes to hydro, Brown says he wants to curb the over generation of energy to deal with global adjustment, and reign in executive salaries in the hydro industry. Brown says the over generation of power in Ontario has to be dealt with, because it’s leading to massive global adjustment charges that are hurting businesses and families. Brown says not only will he stop proceeding with new energy contracts that have recently been signed by the Liberals, he would also stop the contracts coming out this summer.
He mentioned a business he recently visited in Kakabeka Falls near Thunder Bay that had a hydro bill of $11,000 and $4,500 of it was global adjustment. Brown says global adjustment is where the government is able to hide all the extra costs as a result of the over generation of energy. Brown says the government signing off on the CEO of Hydro One making $4.5-million a year while the CEO of Hydro Quebec is making $400,000 sends the wrong message. He finished by saying when there’s an extravagance at the top, it tends to trickle down through an organization where there’s not a real value for tax payer and rate payer dollars.
by Aaron Mahoney