THUNDER BAY – “Even kids know you can’t run a lemonade stand buying lemons for 80 cents and selling the lemonade for 5 cents. Yet, that’s how Premier McGuinty is running Ontario’s hydro system,” states Tim Hudak, Leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives. The PC Leader says, “Dalton McGuinty’s energy experiments are forcing families to pay a mark-up of up to 20 times the market rate. Even the Premier’s Task Force on Competitiveness, Productivity and Economic Progress says Dalton McGuinty has grossly understated the costs families will pay. His green, energy experiments pay producers 80 cents per kilowatt hour and then sell that electricity for 5 or 6 cents”.
“The Task Force is also openly questioning Dalton McGuinty’s claim that expensive green energy will create 50,000 net new jobs,” continued Hudak. “The rich energy subsidises to foreign companies like IKEA and Samsung are driving rates up while jobs are being lost in Ontario”.
“Dalton McGuinty’s expensive energy experiments have failed in countries like Spain and Germany. In Spain, 2.2 jobs were lost for each so-called “green” job created. Ontario has lost a net 300,000 manufacturing jobs since Dalton McGuinty came to office,” adds Hudak.
According to the PCs, “The McGuinty Government has signed nearly 16,000 energy contracts that will pay power producers up to 80 cents per kilowatt hour when the current market price for electricity is 5 or 6 cents. That’s a mark up of up to 2,000%”.
“The hard numbers prove that Dalton McGuinty is selling Ontario families a false bill of goods on job creation, and making them pay dearly for it,” concludes Hudak.