(QUEEN’S PARK) MPP Randy Hillier, Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox & Addington, slammed the McGuinty Liberals for their disastrous energy policies. Yesterday, Ontario’s Minister of Energy revealed that the Government intends to build the unwanted Oakville Generating Station adjacent to the seldom used Lennox Generating Station.
“Minister Bentley informed the Legislature that the Government has decided to relocate the cancelled Oakville power plant to the OPG site in Napanee,” said Hillier. “What the Minister omitted is that the Government’s intention is to leave the underused LGS facility off and build a brand new gas-fired generating facility, next door to the existing gas-fired generating facility.”
The existing Lennox Generating Station has a 2,100 Megawatt generating capacity, yet is seldom used. In 2010, the LGS produced only 60 Gigawatts/hour, or approximately one percent of its potential output capacity. The relocated Oakville plant to be built adjacent to the LGS only has a capacity of 900MW – less than half of the existing capacity at the underused facility in Napanee.
The Oakville Generating Station was cancelled by the Liberal Party in an attempt to protect a sitting Liberal member. The Oakville plant was to be built to meet power demands for the west end of the Greater Toronto Area.
“There are so many simple solutions to this mess yet the Government continues to choose the most expensive, wasteful option,” said Hillier. “The Liberals evidently haven’t looked at a map recently or they would have realized that firstly, there is already a fully functioning, yet unused facility in Napanee, and secondly, Napanee isn’t exactly neighbouring the west end of Toronto.”
Despite claims that the relocated Oakville plant will only cost $40 Million, thousands of pages of incomplete and redacted documents tabled by the Government yesterday indicate that the cost of relocating the plant to Napanee will cost taxpayers alone $450 Million. The $450 Million alone does not include the cost to taxpayers to build the new plant in Napanee.
Randy Hillier, MPP Lanark Frontenac Lennox, is a co-founder of the Lanark Landowners Association, which was brought to life to address government imposition on the rights of private property owners, and to address the regressive regulatory impositions that government was bringing down upon farmers and business owners in rural Ontario.
In 2006, Randy resigned as President of the OLA in order to run as a candidate for the Progressive Conservatives. Randy was elected in the 2007 provincial election.
Randy a long-time resident of Lanark County, an electrician by trade and member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), continues to co-publish and edit rural Ontario’s successful magazine “The Landowner.”
