Accountability on cancelled power plants remains front and centre.

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 20, 2013

Only a day after the McGuinty-Wynne government presented a Throne Speech completely void of new ideas to get Ontario’s economy back on track, the Liberal government has found its self on the verge of contempt of the Legislature.

 “We’re a step closer to finally getting to the bottom of this cover up,” Cambridge MPP Rob Leone said today. Leone presented a motion, passed by the House, calling for all documents on the cancellation of the Oakville and Mississauga Gas Plants to be released. The matter will now be sent to the Standing Committee on Justice for further inquiry. Four months ago the McGuinty-Wynne Liberals shut down the Legislature in an effort to avoid accountability and stop the investigation into the politically motivated decisions to cancel two gas plants, to the tune of over $1 billion dollars. “My constituents in Cambridge have been waiting for a promised hospital expansion for years,” said Leone. “The fact that the Liberals would squander a billion dollars of public funds knowing full well it could have gone to other priority projects is unconscionable.” Days before the 2011 election, the Liberal campaign team, co-chaired by current Premier Kathleen Wynne, made the decision to cancel a Mississauga Power Plant they once championed, and won 5 seats in the process. Leone says the move was a desperate attempt to use public money to save Liberal seats in a hotly contested election. “The McGuinty-Wynne Liberals were so desperate to hide the full cost of cancelling the Mississauga and Oakville power plants, that they were willing to obstruct MPPs from doing their jobs on behalf of outraged Ontario taxpayers. We are holding them to account.” Leone says he hopes to see the Committee struck in the next couple of days.

-30-

For further inquiry, please contact: Cal MacLellan | Office of Rob Leone, MPP, Cambridge | cal.maclellan@pc.ola.org |  416.325.8451 (office) | 416.708.4296 (cell)