Queen’s Park debates cancelled gas plants costs

(Update)

The true cost of cancelling the Oakville gas power plant stoked some heated debate at Queen’s Park Wednesday. The Progressive Conservatives are pushing the NDP to support a non-confidence motion against the minority Liberals over the cost of cancelling gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga which the Auditor General says could cost you one-billion dollars.

Melissa Raftis has reaction the day after the A-G released her bombshell audit.

While NDP leader Andrea Horwath dismissed PC leader Tim Hudak’s call for a non-confidence vote, one thing the opposition parties were both quick to point out was that the millions of dollars spent on cancelling the plants could have been spent on other things the province needs like healthcare or transportation. And that made for some heated debate in Question Period.

Hudak: “You could have set a higher standard but you signed the deal you signed the document. If you’re going to do that and sell us up the river why should we trust you with the finances in our great province.”

Wynne: “There were mistakes made. I have apologized and I do Speaker: The member from Halton apologize. My responsibility now is to make sure that this never happens again. That we have the processes in place to make sure this never happens again.”

P-C leader Tim Hudak says if he’s elected premier, he’ll call for a judicial inquiry into the gas plant cancellations.

Hudak: “The only choice speaker is to clear out this entire corrupt lot. Change out the government.”

Hudak is looking to fast-track an election by calling a non-confidence vote, but NDP leader Andrea Horwath says he’s playing games: “He can stand on his head and spit nickles but the election can’t be called unless the Liberals decide to call that motion.”

Instead, Horwath focused her attention on Wynne. Demanding more than an apology: “She was part of the team that signed off on the crass decision to hold on to power. So if the premier thinks this was wrong why didn’t she stand up and say so when she had the chance?”

Wynne: “What we were doing was we were implementing a decision that had been a promise of all three parties Mr. Speaker that we were determined that we were going to relocate the gas plants because that was the right thing to do Mr. Speaker. Had we listened to the community in the first place, to the communities concerns we wouldn’t have been in that situation.”

Words echoed by former Premier Dalton McGuinty: “I regret the fact it cost so much, I regret the fact that we hadn’t acted sooner but it was right to relocate those plants.”

The Liberals could declare any bill to be one of confidence. But the opposition parties probably won’t get a chance to cast a non-confidence vote until next spring’s budget.

We won’t really know how much of an impact this has had on the Liberals and the voters until the next election is called.