Romano speaks out against bad energy contracts

NEWS RELEASE

ONTARIO PC CANDIDATE ROSS ROMANO

*************************
“There is no issue I hear about more at the doors than the punishing cost of hydro in Sault Ste. Marie. The number of people struggling month to month to keep up with their bills is unprecedented and deeply upsetting.

“What’s shocking is how easily this crisis could have been avoided. Over the last eight years, the Ontario Liberals have handed out preferential deals to wind and solar companies at hugely inflated rates, all for energy Ontario didn’t need.

“In 2015, the Auditor General reported that Ontarians had overpaid $37 billion for electricity. Since 2009, we have given away $6 billion in surplus energy to Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. It frustrates me that people in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan are in a better position to benefit from the government’s energy policy than people in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

“All this could have been avoided. In 2009, the Liberals and the NDP voted for the so-called Green Energy Act, claiming that it was the environmentally friendly option. They seem to forget that our province has always had a great source of clean energy that is being wasted every day: hydroelectricity. Just two years ago, we abandoned

“Kathleen Wynne has admitted that her government has hugely mishandled the energy file, but refuses to address the root cause of the problem. In fact, a leaked Liberal Cabinet document revealed that the Liberals’ hydro borrowing scheme will cause rates to skyrocket to the highest they’ve ever been just after the election.

“On the other hand, the NDP are pitching fairy-tale solutions but they will not acknowledge or fix the underlying problems they caused when they chose to prop up the Liberal’s catastrophic Green Energy Act.

“Joe Krmpotich and Debbie Amaroso need to come clean about the disastrous consequences of their parties’ energy policies. This problem will not be solved until we take the steps to end bad contracts and make life affordable.

“Only the Ontario PCs are committed to doing this on behalf of the families of Sault Ste. Marie.”

*************************