About a month ago, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty was in the middle of a heated provincial election campaign. McGuinty and the Liberals ended the election just a single seat short of a majority government. In the beginning of the campaign the Liberals were in the position of losing the election. However, by election day, on October 6th, they managed to come from behind and fall just one seat short of a majority government. Besides vigorous campaigning by McGuinty and the rest of his party, McGuinty made a plethora of last minute promises.
One of the premier’s most talked about promises, was to relocate the controversial $400-million power plant that was set to be built in Mississauga. However, on October 24, a convoy of trucks were seen delivering what appeared to be power generators, to the site.
The defeated Ontario Conservative leader, Tim Hudak, took the opportunity to comment on these events.
“Dalton McGuinty promised Mississauga families he would scrap this power plant and, a month later, construction still continues,” Hudak said, in a prepared release.
According to the newly sworn in Minister of Energy, Chris Bentley, the Liberals are still commited to relocating the plant. However, Bentley gave no explanation as to why construction work on the site was still continuing.
“The Ontario government is committed to relocating the natural gas plant originally planned for Mississauga,” Mr. Bentley wrote in a Monday release. “The government will work with the company to find a suitable location for this plant.”
Ontario NDP leader, Andrea Horwath took a different stance on the issue. Horwath insisted that the government should provide Ontarians with straight and direct answers, regarding the financial cost's of a deconstruction of the power plant.
"What the Liberals should do is to tell the people of Ontario how much it’s going to cost to cancel that gas plant, to start taking it apart instead of building it,” Horwath told the Toronto star.
Hudak questioned the validity of McGuinty's promise to have the plant moved. The PC leader suggested that the government is up to "the same old tricks to waste money."
Some critics also suggest McGuinty made false promises during the campaign in order to gain last minute votes.
Premier McGuinty insisted the plant needed to be moved because there is now a greater level of development around the proposed construction site, and that when the power plant was originally proposed there was much less development in the area.
Kayan Yassine - Kayan Yassine is an avid follower in the fields of sports, entertainment news and politics and focus' his writing in those areas.
Join the Conversation