Hydro rates are back in the spotlight as the provincial conservative leader promises to spend less on buying extra power.
Patrick Brown is slamming the Liberals, claiming there are plans to buy enough surplus electricity to power another 24,000 homes.
While visiting Kakabeka, he says he wouldn’t allow any new contracts to pay wind and solar farms for power the province doesn’t need.
Brown says the province has also given away $6 billion worth of surplus electricity since 2009.
If Brown he’s elected premier, he says he’ll look at getting out of existing contracts.
He claims his party obtained the details of a contract which the province could have backed out of, saving ratepayers from subsidizing “a billion-and-a-half [dollars] of surplus electricity they could have got out of.”
“Instead, they took the billion-and-a-half they didn’t need. They didn’t want to appear like they were walking away from their Green Energy Act.”
Brown also accused Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government of “handing out” deals to what he calls “energy insiders” along with Liberals’ donors and friends.