Tim Hudak will Give Ontario Families Relief on Their Hydro Bills by Ending Dalton McGuinty’s Expensive FIT and Samsung Programs
Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

TORONTO — Today, in a speech to the Ontario Power Summit, Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak said a PC government will provide relief for families on their hydro bills and restore transparency and competition to Ontario’s energy sector by ending Dalton McGuinty’s expensive and unsustainable Feed-in Tariff (FIT) program and his sweetheart Samsung deal.

Ontario families’ hydro bills are forecast to skyrocket by $732 a year within the next four years. Even Dalton McGuinty admits the majority of the skyrocketing costs will come from his FIT and Samsung projects. His flawed approaches to renewable energy have lacked transparency from the start and, unless stopped, will lock Ontario families into paying unsustainable subsidies on their bills for the next 20 years.

An Ontario PC government will integrate renewable energy into Ontario’s energy supply mix by ensuring the process is competitive and transparent and, above all, affordable to Ontario families. While Dalton McGuinty believes Ontario families can pay more for his expensive energy experiments, only Tim Hudak and the Ontario PCs will provide the relief Ontario families need.

QUOTES:

“Even Dalton McGuinty says the largest contributing factor to rising hydro bills over the next several years will be his FIT and Samsung projects. Instead of engaging in social engineering and expensive experiments, I will integrate renewable energy sources at prices families can afford.”

–Tim Hudak, Ontario PC Leader

“I believe that competition, transparency and affordability are the best means of delivering value to families who pay the bills, and to the industry itself that deserves a predictable and open partner at Queen’s Park.”

–Tim Hudak, Ontario PC Leader

“Tim Hudak’s announcement will go a long way to depoliticizing the energy sector in Ontario and save ratepayers billions in future billings.”

–Parker Gallant, National Post columnist

QUICK FACTS:

  • Those who have invested in the FIT projects under the current rules can count on an Ontario PC government to honour those contracts.
  • Dalton McGuinty signed the sole-sourced $7-billion Samsung deal in January 2010. He still refuses to tell Ontario families, or even key decision makers in the energy sector, what he committed Ontario to. To date, the Samsung deal has not produced a single megawatt of electricity.
  • Subsidies in Dalton McGuinty’s FIT program pay as much as 80 cents per kilowatt-hour, about 20 times the going rate for power. Much like the secret Samsung deal, there was never any transparency in how these FIT prices were set in the first place.

Authorized by the CFO of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario

Tim Hudak