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Bugs
Joined: 16 Dec 2009
Posts: 1942
  
votes: 5
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 Posted: Sun May 19, 2013 2:23 pm Post subject: Dalton McGuinty admits moving gas plants was his decision |
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| Quote: | Dalton McGuinty admits moving gas plants was his decision
Former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty admitted Tuesday he didn't know the full cost of moving gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga when he made the controversial decision to relocate them.
Speaking before the legislature’s justice committee Tuesday, McGuinty admitted the decision to relocate the plants west of Toronto came later and cost more than he would have liked, but he said relocating them was the right decision, given their proximity to schools and homes.
"We were faced with a circumstance where gas plants were sited right next to schools, condominium towers, family homes and a hospital," he said. "That wasn't right."
The decision to close the power-generating plants become controversial for two reasons. The first was the timing: the Mississauga plant announcement came during the 2011 election campaign; the Oakville decision came a year earlier. Both decisions were made in response to growing opposition in ridings held by Liberal MPPs.
The combined cost of tearing up contracts with the developers was another problem. The cost of moving both plants is now estimated to be more than $585 million, far above the $230 million McGuinty and the Liberals had been claiming.
During his testimony on Tuesday, McGuinty's clashed with Progressive Conservative MPP Vic Fedeli, especially when McGuinty insisted the $40-million figure the Liberals had been using as the cost of cancelling the Oakville plant came from the Ontario Power Authority. It was recently estimated that moving the plant will likely cost more than $300 million. An auditor's report on the Oakville relocation is due this summer.
'I don't believe your answer'
The auditor general has estimated the cost of cancelling the Mississauga gas plant during will be at least $275 million, $85 million more than McGuinty or the Liberals were admitting during his time as premier.
"You keep saying that I'm not giving you an answer," complained McGuinty, "Perhaps you don't like the answer."
"No, no, I don't believe the answer," said Fedeli. "To be perfectly frank, I don't believe your answer."
McGuinty also said he took responsibility for relocating both plants, which he said was the right thing to do because of their proximity to schools and residences.
“We got 17 gas plants more or less right, but we got two very, very wrong," he said. “There was a strong sense that my government had made a mistake in choosing those locations," said McGuinty.
Prorogued legislature
Tory MPP John Yakabuski questioned McGuinty's stated reason for moving the plants, pointing out that any potential environmental issues would have been known when the sites were chosen more than five years earlier.
“In both these cases, you were presented with the polling that said 'we’ve got to shut these down,'" said Yakabuski.
McGuinty had blamed the heated debate over the gas plant cancellations last fall when he suddenly prorogued the legislature and announced his resignation as premier.
Both opposition parties say Kathleen Wynne, who succeeded McGuinty in January, wasn't as forthcoming as she could have been when she testified about the gas plants last week.
Wynne has said she was not involved in the government’s decision to scrap either plant.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/.....imony.html |
Note than none of this deals with the quality of the decision that was made in the first place, when the original decision was made. How can you be so glib when half a $billion has been pissed down the wall?
McGuinty is taking responsiiblity because, now, he's fireproof. This is what passes for 'smart politics' in Ontario these days! |
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| Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 8:24 am Post subject: |
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| Not sure how/why we re-elected McGuinty, unfortunately for us Huddak is an ineffective leader as the election was his to lose......... Maybe next time.... |
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Bugs
Joined: 16 Dec 2009
Posts: 1942
votes: 5
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| Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 9:28 pm Post subject: |
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Just think ... if John Tory weren't such an arrogant twit, who came up with the off-the-wall plan to fund religious schools ... we would have been saved from McGoof's zaney "Green jobs" plan ... and spared two terms of bad administration and stupid ideas.
Hudak isn't that bad.
I think it's the PC party itself. It wants to dissociate itself from its most successful leader since Bill Davis -- Mike Harris! I think it's the mythology of the 'red Tory' that has many of them stupified.
I don't know if there was ever a time when red toryism made sense, though intellectuals loved the idea. But it gave us Joe Clark and his miserable failure of a government.
Who, other than Clark, would have opened the gate to Trudeau, so he could patriate the Constitution, and cause the country to lose a decade (or more)?
And that was red toryism's high point!
It's really time that these gentlemen politicians of the Progressive Conservatives understood that, mediocre as they might be, they have a duty to try to win, if only to keep the mediocres of other parties out of office. So what, if they have no ideas! No ideas are better than stupid and corrupt ideas.
Now we're going to have a NDP dominated coalition, which will spend like crazy just to stay in power. The abuses of power entailed in the power-plant decisions will go unpunished. Meanwhile, where is Hudak? Off, being a gentleman? |
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| Posted: Tue May 21, 2013 10:22 am Post subject: |
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| Bugs wrote: |
I think it's the PC party itself. It wants to dissociate itself from its most successful leader since Bill Davis -- Mike Harris! I think it's the mythology of the 'red Tory' that has many of them stupified.
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Hudak is by far the most right leaning leader this party has had in a long long time.
I think his problem is marketing himself that way.
Last edited by cosmostein on Tue May 21, 2013 10:30 am; edited 1 time in total |
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| Posted: Tue May 21, 2013 10:29 am Post subject: |
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There is a wonderful line from the movie Traffic that springs to mind when I read about McGunity falling on the sword over this:
| Quote: | | General Ralph Landry: You know, when they forced Khruschev out, he sat down and wrote two letters to his successor. He said - "When you get yourself into a situation you can't get out of, open the first letter, and you'll be safe. When you get yourself into another situation you can't get out of, open the second letter". Well, soon enough, this guy found himself into a tight place, so he opened the first letter. Which said - "Blame everything on me". So he blames the old man, it worked like a charm. He got himself into a second situation he couldn't get out of, he opened the second letter. It said - "Sit down, and write two letters". |
The problem we have goes will beyond two canceled power plants, we are now a importer of energy which was never the case in the past.
We rushed to shutdown thousands of MW's worth of Coal Fire plants, yet had no viable plan to replace them.
We build the worlds largest Photovoltaic Power Plant which takes up 1,100 acres of space, yet generates under 100MW of power?
The former small Lampton Coal plant down the road used to generate at full capacity 1,976MW's.
That site is now being re-developed to take on the natural gas plant that was originally going to be built in Mississauga which will generate far less power.
We need a proper energy strategy, and this is one major issue I have with Hudak.
Buried in the plan we talk about Nuclear power, but that needs to be highlighted and the fact that we are buying power from Michigan and New York (whom we use to sell to) needs to be more of an issue. |
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| Posted: Tue May 21, 2013 12:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Bugs wrote: | Just think ... if John Tory weren't such an arrogant twit, who came up with the off-the-wall plan to fund religious schools ... we would have been saved from McGoof's zaney "Green jobs" plan ... and spared two terms of bad administration and stupid ideas.
Hudak isn't that bad.
I think it's the PC party itself. It wants to dissociate itself from its most successful leader since Bill Davis -- Mike Harris! I think it's the mythology of the 'red Tory' that has many of them stupified.
I don't know if there was ever a time when red toryism made sense, though intellectuals loved the idea. But it gave us Joe Clark and his miserable failure of a government.
Who, other than Clark, would have opened the gate to Trudeau, so he could patriate the Constitution, and cause the country to lose a decade (or more)?
And that was red toryism's high point!
It's really time that these gentlemen politicians of the Progressive Conservatives understood that, mediocre as they might be, they have a duty to try to win, if only to keep the mediocres of other parties out of office. So what, if they have no ideas! No ideas are better than stupid and corrupt ideas.
Now we're going to have a NDP dominated coalition, which will spend like crazy just to stay in power. The abuses of power entailed in the power-plant decisions will go unpunished. Meanwhile, where is Hudak? Off, being a gentleman? |
Ya good old John Tory, faith based education as if!!!! Must have been a bit too much of the psychedelic stuff during the campaign.... ;)
Now Mike Harris, I did like him as he did what had to be done in some instances. We could use a bit of his financial trimming lessons at both the federal and provincial levels..... |
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Dalton McGuinty admits moving gas plants was his decision |
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