Promises from Ontario’s three main political parties on hydro bills

Here’s a glance at some promises Ontario’s three major political parties have made on hydro prices:

LIBERALS: Implemented the Fair Hydro Act, adopted in 2017 to lower hydro rates by an average of 25 per cent, following rising anger at the Liberal government over high prices.

The plan partly lowers rates by letting customers off the hook for a portion of the global adjustment — a charge consumers pay for above-market rates to power producers — for the next 10 years. In the meantime, producers will continue being paid the same, so Ontario Power Generation has been tapped to oversee the debt used to pay that difference. Auditor general Bonnie Lysyk has accused the province of underestimating and misrepresenting the financial impact of the plan and shifting the increased cost to a new generation of rate payers.

NDP: Bringing primary power transmission agency Hydro One back under public ownership — 53 per cent of which was sold by the Liberal government — reducing bills by 30 per cent by eliminating time-of-day pricing, capping private profit margins, setting the same delivery rates for urban and rural users, exempting First Nations communities from electricity delivery charges.

PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVES: Lowering hydro bills by an average 12 per cent by returning Hydro One dividends to customers, taking the cost of conservation programs off hydro bills and shifting the burden to taxpayers, and halting new energy contracts and renegotiating new ones.

They would also fire the chief executive officer and the board of Hydro One.