Jeff Arbus wants special hydro rates for forest sector

NEWS RELEASE

ONTARIO NEW DEMOCRATS

************************* NDP Fair Hydro Rates plan will sustain Northern jobs

Jeff Arbus will fight for lower industrial rates, new Northern system

Sault Ste. Marie NDP Candidate Jeff Arbus says NDP Leader Howard Hampton will reverse four years of misguided McGuinty Liberal hydro policies with a Fair Hydro Rates plan that will recover and sustain Northern Ontario forest sector jobs.

The NDP plan, unveiled by Hampton today in Thursday Bay, means that as of Jan. 1, 2008, Northern Ontario forest sector mills would be eligible for a new industrial hydro rate of $45 a megawatt hour all charges included.

That’s a substantial saving over the McGuinty job-killing rate of $65 a megawatt hour.

"Dalton McGuinty turned his back on Northerners when he drove up hydro rates and destroyed thousands of forest sector jobs," Arbus said.

"I am proud to be part of the Howard Hampton NDP team that will clean up McGuinty’s mess. Our Fair Hydro Rates plan will put Northern Ontario back on the right track. It will help us recover and sustain good-paying jobs for working families by ensuring that key employers have stable, predictable and affordable hydro rates,” the NDP candidate said.

To be eligible, forest sector mills will have to enter into five-year agreements with the province to sustain Northern Ontario jobs and work with the government to achieve energy efficiency targets.

The NDP’s preferred long-term mechanism to deliver the Fair Hydro Rates plan is a Northern Ontario Hydro-Electrical Corporation owned by the people of Northern Ontario.

It would operate on a non-profit, power-at-cost basis.

Northern Ontario generates electricity (mostly from falling water) at some of the lowest costs in the world.

The region has a surplus of low-cost electricity.

And the North is an “energy island” – largely separate and unconnected to Southern Ontario’s electricity system. “Northern Ontario hydro consumers should be benefiting from the gift that nature has given – fast-flowing rivers that generate low-cost electricity. But the McGuinty government’s misguided hydro policies force forest-sector mills to pay skyrocketing hydro rates. McGuinty has it wrong. New Democrats will make it right,” Hampton said in making the announcement.

A Northern Ontario Hydro-Electrical Corporation providing power at cost will allow the people of Northern Ontario to take greater control over Northern Ontario’s economic destiny.

“If Manitoba Hydro and Saskatchewan Power can provide stable, affordable and predictable hydro rates to sustain good jobs and communities in those provinces, then we can do the same in Northern Ontario,” Hampton said.

************************* SooToday.com file photo shows Jeff Arbus flanked by Ontario NDP Leader Howard Hampton and Sault MP Tony Martin.