Wynne insists hydro-rate-relief plan proves she’s not out of touch with voters

As June 2018 election looms, the Ontario premier hit the phones to call a number of Ontarians who had reached out to her previously with complaints about sky-high electricity costs.

Thestar.com
March 3, 2017
By Rob Ferguson

Premier Kathleen Wynne says her plan to cut hydro costs by 25 per cent this summer proves she’s not out of touch with voters.

“What people will see on their electricity bills come summer is a response to a real need that people were feeling,” she said Friday, on another busy day of media interviews to sell the rate-relief package.

This was criticized by Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown as “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” because the 25-per-cent break will cost Ontarians $25 billion in interest payments over the next 30 years.

Mustering her best sales pitch, Wynne tested some new lines and hit the phones to call a number of Ontarians who had reached out to her previously with complaints about sky-high electricity costs.

Wynne’s government began rebating the 8-per-cent provincial portion of the HST on hydro bills in January, but decided that wasn’t enough, leading to Thursday’s announcement of another 17 per cent cut.

“The changes we are making are in direct response to what we’ve heard people say,” she told CBC Radio’s Metro Morning.

“Of course, there’s a political consideration, but the motivator ... is to make sure that people have a break on their electricity bills.”

Toronto Hydro wrote in an email to customers that the changes are expected to kick in on bills June 1.

Wynne defended the extra cost of spreading the cost of $50 billion in investments in the electricity system in the last decade or so over a longer period, saying she thinks of it in terms of her grandchildren.

“I want them to have a strong electricity system, but I want their mom and dad to be able to afford their life right now.”

On a speaker phone from her Queen’s Park office to a woman with expensive electric home heating in Sturgeon Falls, near Sudbury, Wynne later insisted the plan “will make a big difference,” but couldn’t ring off without facing a string of questions.

They ranged from why Hydro One chief executive Mayo Schmidt earns $4 million a year to the extra interest costs and the expensive peak daytime rates for electricity under time-of-use pricing.

Wynne replied that executive salaries are “a big issue,” and promised to keep a reasonable cap on them before pausing to acknowledge “it’s not a perfect answer.”

On the $25 billion in extra interest, “it does mean it costs a bit more but that’s how mortgages work,” said Wynne, who has blamed her own and previous governments of all stripes for slip-ups in hydro.