Premier Kathleen Wynne pledges more relief on hydro bills

Windsor-area woman whose Facebook rant on hydro prices went viral sounds off at meeting with Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Thestar.com
Jan. 18, 2017
By Rob Ferguson

Ontario residents stressed by hydro bills can expect more relief by spring, Premier Kathleen Wynne said after meeting with a Windsor-area woman whose Facebook rant on electricity prices went viral.

“We’re going to come out with what we can do before the budget,” Wynne pledged during an hour-long chat with Libby Keenan of Amherstburg, who is $230 in arrears on her bill and feared her electricity would be cut off.

Keenan left the meeting in Wynne’s office pleased after a “very productive conversation,” although no new promises were made.

Energy Minister Glen Thibeault said last month that new aid would not be held back until the budget and decreed no one’s electric service would be cancelled during the cold winter months.

“This has not taken marching up and down, threatening tear gas or anything else in the streets,” said Keenan, who owns a small horse farm. “This is the most polite revolution I’ve ever seen in my life . . . . It was worth the drive.”

Keenan said she made the point that many people can’t afford to retrofit their homes to qualify for rebates on renovations and upgrades that could reduce their electricity bills, and was critical of the $4-million salary paid to new Hydro One chief executive Mayo Schmidt.

“I don’t care if you’re the pope, you don’t deserve $4 million a year.”

Wynne said she’s taking Keenan’s views “into account” during a small portion of the meeting reporters were allowed to observe.

Keenan’s self-styled “rant” on Facebook earlier this month garnered about 22,000 shares, 12,000 comments and an offer of a meeting with Wynne, whose government is feeling the heat over skyrocketing hydro rates in the last few years.

“You are ruining this province,” Keenan wrote of the premier.

“When you have drained every last one of us of any ability whatsoever to pay ever more fees, taxes, tolls, renewals, insurance where are you going to fill your lust for our hard earned money then!!!!!”

Wynne reiterated that it is not acceptable for some Ontarians to be struggling so much with hydro bills, on which all ratepayers are now getting an 8-per-cent break through the waiving of the 8-per-cent provincial portion of the 13-per-cent HST.

That kicked in Jan. 1 and Thibeault said utility customers seeing only small rebates of the tax on their hydro bills so far this month should not think they’re being shortchanged.

“You’ll see a small portion on the bill if you got it a couple of days ago or last week, let’s say, because that bill was mostly for the month of December,” he told reporters earlier in the day.

“We’re telling everyone to wait until the end of this month because the 8 per cent will then apply to the January bill. There’s nothing to panic about.”

Several readers have contacted the Star recently with questions about the instant tax rebate, with one calling it a “colossal charade” and another “a joke.”

New Democrat MPP Peter Tabuns said it’s good that Wynne got a first-hand briefing from an electricity consumer, even though there were no details of any new assistance.

“I didn’t hear a lot new . . . . I’m glad Ms. Keenan had her chance to talk with the premier. I’m sure she brought a lot of reality into that office.”