Letter to the Editor:

I welcome Francesca Dobbyn, joining Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals, in the race to be elected MPP on June 7. While we both agree that Bill Walker's Progressive Conservative promises to cut spending will cut our needed services, such as health care and education, it seems that our agreement ends there.

It is interesting that Dobbyn, known for fighting against hydro cut-offs in the winter, is now running for a party which has promised to install prepaid hydro meters that automatically shut down someone's hydro – with no warning. Under the Liberals, hydro rates have skyrocketed by 300 per cent, 50 per cent under Kathleen Wynne's leadership alone. Wynne sold-off Hydro One – against the wishes of 80 per cent of Ontario families and to the severe detriment of our province. That is a revenue generating public asset – one of the oldest in the province, and that money should be going to undo the damage done to our hospitals and schools by decades of Conservative and Liberal cuts. Instead – that revenue is lining the pockets of wealthy shareholders. Not exactly what folks bargained for the last time they voted Liberal.

Now Kathleen Wynne is playing a shell game with the Auditor General and Ontario families. She says she cut the cost of our hydro bills – but her plan does nothing but re-finance hydro debt and push it on to the next generation – our kids and grandkids – while our bills will go right back up again after the election. She is hiding the debt and ignoring Ontario's non-partisan Auditor General who has called her out on the bogus accounting practices she is using to do it.

Doug Ford's hydro plan is simply to adopt Wynne's $40 billion borrowing scheme.

Only the NDP has a full plan which will lower hydro rates by about 30%. In the short term, the cost of buying back Hydro One will be paid for by the dividends the province receives from the private company – this will not increase rates. After about 8 years, the utility will be paid for, and the profits can be reinvested in Ontario, rather than going into the pockets of private owners. Further to that, the NDP will address the electricity oversupply issue in Ontario. It is a problem when we sell electricity below the cost of generating the power. That costs Ontario ratepayers money.

The people of Ontario, and the people of Bruce and Grey counties, have real choices this election. They can continue to elect an MPP whose party has committed to making cuts, doing more damage to services we need like hospitals and schools. They can elect an MPP whose party will continue to give us more of what we've had for the past 15 years – escalating hydro rates and concerns about our increasing costs with fewer services. Or they can be bold and elect a new government. The NDP will look after the needs of Ontarians. Andrea Horwath and Karen Gventer will deliver change for the better to families in this region, and across the province.

Sincerely,

Karen Gventer
Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound NDP Provincial Candidate