Horwath talks Hydro

News — 23 February 2011

With a provincial election in the not-too-distant future, NDP leader Andrea Horwath made a stop in Dryden, Feb. 19 to offer her party’s solidarity with Hydro One rate payers, angry over significant hikes in electricity costs and the HST.

Horwath appeared at an open meeting at the Holiday Inn Express with members of the local group ‘Join The Fight Against Hydro One Rates’, a Facebook entity with over 1,600 members provincewide.

Horwath says MPPs have been hearing Hydro horror stories since July, when the 13 per cent Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) was introduced to Hydro One billing.

“As soon as they announced they were going to bring the HST in, we knew it was going to hit people hard in the pocketbook,” said Horwath. “It didn’t take long after the implementation occurred to start hearing people’s HST nightmares. You can trim your household budget in lots of different ways, but when it comes heating your home and keeping your lights on, you really have no choice whatsoever. You have to come up with the money.”

Horwath criticized Time Of Use billing — variable electricity rates aimed at promoting use during off-peak hours — as unrealistic. She added her party would support programs to help homeowner to make energy efficiency improvements to their homes.

“You can’t have your kids doing homework at midnight,” said Horwath. “The government had unrealistic expectations about the extent to which people could alter their lifestyles. Everybody’s in favour of conservation, but one of the big problems in that people don’t have readily available cash to do the more important conservation initiatives — like upgrade their insulation.”

By Chris Marchand

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