Press Release
Ontario is providing the most support to Northern Ontario on record with energy rebates to northern families and industry to help reduce electricity prices and boost economic activity.
The new Northern Industrial Electricity Rate Program is providing industry electricity price rebates of two cents per kilowatt hour, averaging a total of $150 million per year for three years.
Through the program, qualifying large industrial facilities can reduce electricity costs by up to 25 percent, based on 2009 levels.
Meanwhile, low- to middle-income Northern Ontario residents also will receive help for their home energy costs through the new Northern Ontario Energy Credit.
This credit will provide up to $200 per family and up to $130 for single people—totalling about $35 million.
It will be available to a quarter-of-a-million families and single people, which is more than half of all northerners.
Application forms are available at ServiceOntario locations.
“We recognize the unique circumstances faced by our northern communities, including higher energy costs, and we will continue to take action to bring more jobs and encourage growth in the region,” Finance minister Dwight Duncan noted during a recent visit to Sudbury with MPP Rick Bartolucci.
“Northern initiatives will help ensure job creation for Northern Ontarians through incentives that attract new investments and strengthen our economy,” echoed Bartolucci.
The 2010 Ontario budget alone allocated a total of $200 million this year to programs that support the people, businesses, and industries of the north that were hard hit by the global recession.
