THUNDER BAY – The Ontario PCs and Liberals are dueling with ‘Open Letters’ as their weapon of choice. It started this morning with an letter issued by PC leader Tim Hudak over the weekend announcement by Premier McGuinty over a proposed closure of a power plant in Mississauga.
The PCs offered a live-stream feed of the ongoing work at the power plant to document that work has not stopped. The Liberals countered with Campaign Chair Greg Sorbara stating in a letter to Hudak, “Your misrepresentations and outright lies on this campaign – from calling Canadian citizens “foreign workers” to covering up the $14 billion hole in your platform – are proof that you have no positive ideas to move Ontario forward (or lead this province)”.
Here is a link to the PC Livestream Video.
Here are the texts of the two letters:
Premier Dalton McGuinty
Government of Ontario
Legislative Building
Queens Park
Toronto, ON M7A 1A1
Dear Premier:
I am writing today to request information concerning your weekend announcement on the future of the Greenfield South Power Plant in Mississauga. I believe that Ontario families deserve to know the costs and ramifications of your decision before they vote on October 6.
Independent analysts have estimated that your decision to cancel the Oakville power plant could cost Ontario families over $1 billion – although you have not yet released the costs of that decision yet either. Despite community opposition, you have been committed to this plant for six years, and now – just 11 days before the election – you said you are reversing course. It is inconceivable that you can ask families in Ontario to trust you with a third term, while refusing to explain the details and costs of this last-minute decision.
Today I am calling on you to give Ontario families the answers they deserve to the following questions:
1. When will you release the contract for the cancelled Mississauga power plant?
2. What is the penalty that Ontario families will pay for you scrapping the deal?
3. How much money did you spend on:
a. Planning documents for the project?
b. Environmental assessments for the project?
c. Site preparation for the project?
d. Pouring the foundations for the project?
4. You have stated that you would “move” this power plant. Where are you planning to move it? Are there other locations in the Western edge of the GTA that you are
considering? Will you tell your chosen community that you have in mind before October 6?
Premier, Ontario families deserve answers on how much your two power plant backtracks will cost them and further drive up energy costs. They deserve these answers before, not after, election day.
Sincerely,
Tim Hudak
Ontario PC Leader
Mr. Tim Hudak
Room 381, Main Legislative Building
Queen’s Park
Toronto ON M7A1A8
Dear Mr. Hudak,
In response to your open letter sent to Premier McGuinty earlier this morning, rather than wasting any more time than necessary on your fabrications, I prefer to let Steve Thompson of Concerned Homeowners for Intelligent Power – the group that led the charge against the Mississauga gas plant – speak to your posturing and hypocrisy, as he did on CFRB Newstalk 1010 earlier today:
Steve Thompson: We have for the last almost 6-7 years, Mike, been asking the Conservatives what their position is on this plant? And finally, after the Liberals decided that they were going to close it, all of a sudden, miraculously, they come out of the wood work saying we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that.
You know what Mike? It’s all talk until it actually happens. We have talked to John Yakabuski, we’ve talked to, who is the energy critic. We’ve got no response from him. Actually, you know what? John Yakabuski came up with a situation of, and saying yeah okay we don’t have a problem with the one in Oakville, we don’t have a problem the one on Winston Churchill, we don’t even have a problem with the one on Laurlynn Avenue. Because they don’t have a plan and they don’t understand what’s going on. The IESO is right. The power is not needed and if the Conservatives want to come out and make a statement and have a press conference and invite the CHIP members that have been fighting this for the last 6 years and had a photo-op and tell us face to face for the first time, ah, in the last 6 years that they’re going to cancel the plant, I’ll be thrilled. But until then, all they’ve done is hide their head in the sand and not do anything. We had a member go down when Tim Hudak and Geoff Janocsik’s office and confronted both Tim Hudak and Geoff Janocsik with regards to the power plant and ignored him.
Host Mike Bullard: Geoff Janocsik, hang on Steve, Geoff Janocsik is the Conservative running in Mississauga South, sorry go ahead.
Thompson: Against Charles Sousa. And the only one, Mike, as far as I’m concerned that has actually taken a stand and has been very loyal to the community – and I’m not, we’re not and our group is non-partisan – is Charles Sousa. The guy has been unbelievable.
Bullard: Is Charles Sousa, ya because he…He has not changed his point of view on this. He has been extremely supportive of everybody and in the face of displeasure on the part of his party, he stood up from day 1 and said he didn’t want this plant. This guy is indicative of a – I’m not giving any support to anybody here – but this guy’s indicative of what I like in a politician. Somebody who took a cut in pay from a private industry job to run for politics because he saw some things he wanted to change.
Steve: What bothers me the most Mike is the fact that these guys come in and they want to run against Charles and they want to run against the Liberals. We’re non-partisan. I’m not for the Liberals or for the Conservative. I have my own views on that, but at the end of the day, it’s what’s right and what’s wrong. And what’s right is what’s happening and what the Liberals are planning on doing. They took a huge step forward, as far as we’re concerned, to get this plant put to bed. (CFRB, September 26, 2011)
Tim, you are – once again – repeating things that you know to be untrue. This weekend’s announcement was to relocate the plant. You acknowledge that in your open letter this morning, and yet, you insist on publicly repeating that the contract will be cancelled.
Meanwhile, your staff told the Toronto Sun yesterday that when signed FIT contracts are in municipalities that would rather not have them, you will find “some other way to honour the contract.” In other words, 2,000 signed FIT contracts are now up for renegotiation.
And despite having access to the contract, you’ve never come clean with Ontarians on how much your short-sighted commitment to cancel the Samsung deal will cost.
If anyone owes an answer to Ontarians about costs being driven up because of contracts being cancelled, it’s you.
Your misrepresentations and outright lies on this campaign – from calling Canadian citizens “foreign workers” to covering up the $14 billion hole in your platform – are proof that you have no positive ideas to move Ontario forward (or lead this province).
Sincerely,
[signed]
Greg Sorbara
Campaign Chair