Debt Retirement Charge

Ok, I will give credit to Jim Wilson and his party for trying to spin the whole debt retirement charge that appears on our energy bills. After doing a bit of digging, I've found out that not only is this not a money mystery, but the whole thing started in 1999 when Jim Wilson was the Minister of Energy under the Harris government.

The PC's decided to de-regulate our energy sector and open it up to competition. While this at the time seemed like a good idea, the PC's had to retire the close to 8 billion debt from Ontario Hydro, hence the birth of the debt retirement charge. The plan was to have close to 1 billion a year applied to reducing the debt. However from 1999 to 2003 while the PC's were still in office, they failed to apply any of the money collected from the debt retirement charge to actually reducing the debt. The money collected went into general revenues for the government, and the interest was still being applied to the debt.

So along comes the Liberals in 2003 and they started to apply all of the money collected from the debt retirement charge to actually reducing the debt. Now the PC's are claiming that we as taxpayers have overpaid by 7.8 billion and they want an audit of the books. Each year the Auditor General conducts a full audit of all government departments and the Auditor General does not work for any of the political parties as his department is non-partisan. So when he presents his yearly report to the house, it's very open and honest. Most of the time the Auditors reports attacks the governing party for the way they conduct their business, and in this case his report is clear that the Liberals have been applying the money collected from the debt retirement charge to actually reducing the debt, and it's not being out into general revenue like the PC's did for the last 4 years they were in power, and Jim Wilson was the Minister of Energy.

What really gets me is that all these parties are playing politics and not being honest and upfront with the voters in Ontario. In my travels I've only come across a few political figures who have proven to be honest and upfront. One of them is the Leader of the Green Party of Ontario, Mike Schreiner. (picture below)



Mr. Schreiner tells it like it is and does not talk any BS. If the Greens can't solve a problem or they don't have a solution to a problem, Mike will tell you up front.

I look forward to the whole debt retirement charge becoming an issue in this election and it's about time we hold Mr. Wilson accountable for his past actions and that of his party.

Until next time!