[Lightningrod]

More jolts on way


Brace yourself, Ontario.

Hikes to monthly electricity bills have just begun, Ontario Energy Minister Brad Duguid warns.

As anger rises in London and across the province over the double whammy of higher power prices and the HST, Duguid — the McGuinty government’s point man on electricity — answered questions about the Liberals’ decisions in an exclusive Free Press interview.

Questions and answers:

Q In London, power bills are 17% higher than they were in May. Two reasons, the hydro rate increase and the HST. There’s a lot of anger over it and people want to know how you’re justifying this?

The cost of electricity is going up and it will be for some time to come because we’ve had to make necessary investments to ensure we have a stable supply of energy across the province. Seven years ago, we didn’t have enough supply to meet the demand. We were at great risk of blackouts. As a result, we’ve had to make some extensive investments in generation.

At the same time, we’ve also moved away from dirty sources of power, such as coal, to cleaner sources of energy. There are costs to that.


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