Casselman mayor writes Premier
There was lots of verbal support for Casselman Mayor Conrad Lamadeleine’s letter to Premier Kathleen Wynne, about keeping natural gas as a home heating option for the province.
Lamadeleine sent his letter last month to the premier. He made a copy of it available at the June 8 committee of the whole session of counties council as part of his campaign to lobby other municipalities for support. His fellow mayors in the United Counties of Prescott-Russell (UCPR) had no arguments against the sentiment of the letter.
“Reading the newspapers and listening to the news nowadays is very scary with your Liberal government’s plan considering eliminating natural gas in favour of electricity,” stated Mayor Lamadeleine in his letter to Wynne. “How many people are using natural gas to heat their houses, water heaters, stoves, barbecues, etc.? What about the farmers and all other users of natural gas, commercial buildings, hospitals, offices that are heated with natural gas?”
Mayor Lamadeleine compared the cost to the average for electricity versus natural for home heating.
He stated that 19 kiloWatt-hours of electricity a year for home heating resulted in a bill at the end of the year worth more than $2700 to the average Ontario homeowner.
The cost to heat a house with 19 cubic metres of natural gas over a year’s time was $668.
He also compared the $838 cost to operate an electric water heater for a year in the average home versus $194 for a year with a natural gas system.
Casselman’s mayor told the premier that if the province chose to pressure more homeowners and businesses to convert to electricity, it would put unreasonable pressure on many residents who have to follow tight budgets and that some Ontario businesses might end up shutting down.
Lamadeleine has sent copies of his letter to all of the county councils in Ontario and other municipal organizations. tion of Municipalities of Ontario conference and also some administrative staff summer vacation plans.
Council members spent about a half hour discussing whether it might be possible to avoid any sizeable increase in the municipal tax rate as part of next year’s budget. Finance Director Rob Kehoe noted that Part A of the budget guideline report presented to council lists the non-discretionary budget items which the city cannot avoid seeing increase in cost as part of the 2017 budget.
“Part B starts to look at possible solutions,” Kehoe said, adding that those are the discretionary expense items that council and administration can adjust during the budget discussions.
“There are solutions,” he said, “which we’ll get into during the budget discussions.”
Council approved receipt of the guidelines report for later review as part of the 2017 budget review and planning process when it begins after the summer break.