Duncan testifies about gas plants

Ontario’s former Finance Minister was as combative as ever Thursday as he testified in front of the Queen’s Park Committee looking into the cancellation of two gas plants. He was in charge of our province’s books when the Liberals made the decision to cancel the plants. We now know that decision cost us more than one billion dollars. Despite that staggering figure, Duncan says the public has lost interest in the hearings. The opposition is furious about Duncan’s testimony. Cindy Csordas has the details.

Dwight Duncan told the legislative committee that the cancelling of the two gas power plants that cost $1.1 billion will not drive up hydro bills for taxpayers.

Duncan says there will obviously be a cost but not as bad as the opposition is making it out to be. Duncan said the cost of the cancellations will be spread out over several years and it will be distributed among people who use electricity. But because of it being spread over several years hydro bills will not be huge. Later in question period, the Progressive Conservative energy critic fired away at Premier Kathleen Wynne for Duncan’s testimony Thursday. Duncan also defended the Liberal government saying there wasn’t clear knowledge of how much the cancellation of the power plants would cost.

Duncan: “Even the auditor herself has variable pul and minuses to where it’ll land but we also have to take in to account not just the decision making but what if we’d taken the other step and the auditor can look at that, she can’t properly point out some of the things we did people will debate that, they’ll have their opinion. We acted at the time in what we believed was the best interest of the ratepayers again, acknowledging it wasn’t something we were happy about.”

Lisa MacLeod is the PC Energy Critic: “You knew that the cost would exceed 700 million dollars, all the while you and your colleagues said it was only 33 to 40 million. You want to know why Mr. Speaker? They wanted to rely on the province of Ontario and the people within it, the ratepayers; they wanted to rely on the distinction between taxpayers and ratepayers, it’s absolutely dispicable that she did this.”

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says Duncan’s comments show just how out of touch the Liberals have become. The NDP and the Tories say the Liberals cancelled the plants in Oakville and Mississauga to save their seats in the 2011 election.