Queen’s Park back in session

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The Liberals wanted to start the first day back at Queen’s Park following the winter break by bringing up the good news regarding the province’s growth, but that didn’t stop the opposition from starting up where they left off by trying to stop the practice of cutting off hydro to un-paid or late paying customers.

Earlier at the MaRS Innovation building in Toronto, Ontario’s Minister of Finance announced that the province is on pace to balance the budget next year. It’s no coincidence that the encouraging numbers were announced before the first question period following the winter break where the Liberals were once again grilled about the practice of cutting off hydro to thousands this winter.

“What I’m asking is no more games, will you support the motion today. We can’t afford to wait another day, will you support the motion today? Not tomorrow, not in a week.” Patrick Brown, Ontario PC leader.

Earlier the NDP removed a section in a Liberal bill that made it illegal to shut off a person’s hydro in the winter. They felt that it needed it’s own law and proposed a private members bill, which the Liberals turned down.

Last Thursday, the Energy Minister gave nearly 70 local hydro providers until midnight Tuesday to stop cutting off hydro. If any didn’t follow through, a separate Liberal bill would be introduced tomorrow.

“That’s not good enough, it needs to be law here in Ontario that no utility can cut off anybody’s power during the winter months.” Andrea Horwath, Ontario NDP leader.

Glenn Thibeault was asked why he can’t just make the decision as Energy Minister to make it illegal to cut off people’s power in the winter and he quickly said that he never had that power and that all three parties must follow a democratic process to get laws like this one passed.