It was an urban and rural weekend for Andrea Horwath, Ontario NDP leader.
Horwath was in Sault Ste. Marie Saturday afternoon for the official opening of Sault NDP candidate Joe Krmpotich’s campaign headquarters at 24 Queen Street East.
The opening took place as electricity costs seem to be the defining political issue at Queen’s Park, as both the governing Liberals and NDP have now unveiled plans to cut electricity costs for consumers (the Progressive Conservatives have yet to unveil theirs).
“Our plan would lead to significant savings in a systemic way…we’re not just going to increase the length of the debt and the loans we have in our electricity system in order to give temporary relief for families,” said Horwath to an audience gathered at Krmpotich’s headquarters.
Krmpotich, a Ward 6 city councillor and United Steelworkers Local 2251 union coordinator, was chosen in January to be the NDP candidate in a yet to be called byelection to fill the vacant Sault riding seat.
Earlier Saturday, mayors of small Algoma communities expressed their electricity cost concerns to Horwath and Algoma-Manitoulin MPP Mike Mantha at a meeting held at the Echo Bay Arena.
Horwath listened to the mayors concerns and pitched her party’s newly released electricity price policy.
“It includes getting rid of time of use pricing so that people don’t have to do their laundry at three o’clock in the morning, it includes making sure delivery charges are fair, it includes getting rid of some of the contracts the government has signed that are costing us a fortune, and stops the sale of Hydro One,” Horwath told reporters.
“As electricity rates rise the way they have, unfortunately these municipal leaders are faced with possibly shutting down an arena, how can that be?’” Horwath said.
“Arenas are the glue for a community…they are key pieces of infrastructure.”
“We need to have our rec centres and our arenas but we need manageable electricity costs,” said Ted Hicks, Mayor of Johnson Township.
Hicks said the cost of electricity at the Desbarats rink is now over $52,000 a year, more than 40 per cent of the rink’s annual total costs.
“We may have to reduce the amount of operating time…if we keep going at the same pace as we have the last five or 10 years,” Hicks told SooToday.
Hicks was joined at Saturday’s meeting with Horwath and Mantha by Lory Patteri, Bruce Mines mayor, Jody Wildman, Township of St. Joseph Mayor, Lynn Watson, Echo Bay reeve, Batchewana First Nation Chief Dean Sayers, Robert Hope, Hilton Beach Mayor, and Richard Beitz, Laird Township mayor.
