The NDP aren’t giving up on getting emails involving the Wynne Liberals’ Fair Hydro Plan. Timiskaming-Cochrane MPP John Vanthof says there are other ways to get the documents, like going through the Freedom of Information process after the Liberals refused an NDP request. At issue is the Liberals getting Ontario Power Generation to borrow $40-billion to lower our hydro bills. However the Auditor General says that’s going to cost $4-billion in interest and Vanthof says this won’t surprise the Liberals. Vanthof says the Liberals knew that borrowing the money would cost more money.
However the NDP finance critic says they did it because they promised to have the budget balanced by the June, 2018 election. Vanthof says it doesn’t matter that getting OPG to borrow billions of dollars triggers $4-billion in interest which makes no economic sense. He says that doesn’t matter to them. He says what does matter to the Liberals is that they show they can balance the budget. But Vanthof says the reality is it won’t be balanced.
Although the Auditor General says the Liberals have to put the cost to borrow the $40-billion on their books, she doesn’t have the power to force them. Vanthof says if people need more proof that there’s a political play at work here, they should realize that had the Liberals borrowed the $40-billion and not OPG, the interest would have been lower than the $4-billion, because the government would get a better borrowing rate.
