The Canadian Press
TORONTO–Ontario’s budget watchdog will examine the Liberal government’s plan to lower hydro bills, with the opposition parties questioning its estimated $25-billion in interest costs.
Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown wrote to the financial accountability office, asking it to investigate the plan with a full costing analysis, but a spokeswoman for the office said yesterday they already had been planning a report.
A recently-announced 17 percent reduction in hydro bills comes this summer thanks to a move the Liberals say is like refinancing a mortgage over a longer period of time.
Premier Kathleen Wynne has acknowledged it will cost ratepayers more in the long run, but says savings are needed now because people are struggling.
She has said the extra interest costs related to the plan would amount to $25 billion over 30 years, but the Tories say they’re not clear on how the Liberals arrived at that number.
Wynne’s $25-billion figure does not appear in the hydro relief announcement’s background documents, which say the plan will involve “annual interest costs not exceeding $1.4 billion.”
Brown said in the letter that Ontarians ultimately may have to accept those added costs to get savings now “given the extent to which people are struggling,” but the impact at least should be clear.
“To be candid, this government has a habit of deliberately using false numbers to cover up their worst policy failures,” Brown wrote.
NDP leader Andrea Horwath said yesterday that several figures have been bandied about, so the FAO will help sort that out.
“[The Liberals are] rolling things out on the back of the napkin,” she charged.
“When you do the math stretching it over 30 years, they’re saying it’s $25 billion,” Horwath noted.
“When you do straight-line math, it’s over $40 billion.”
