Ford vows to cut 12% more from hydro bills

Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford is promising to cut an additional 12 per cent from electricity bills, despite criticizing a 25-per-cent rate reduction put in place by the governing Liberals.

Recycling a pledge from former PC leader Patrick Brown’s People’s Guarantee platform, Ford said a Tory government would fund the subsidy by returning to ratepayers the province’s annual $350-million dividend from its 49-per-cent share in Hydro One.

“We all know we are paying billions more for Kathleen Wynne’s desperate attempt to cling to power,” the rookie leader told reporters Friday in Kitchener.

Ford’s campaign promise for the June 7 election builds on Wynne’s controversial Fair Hydro Plan, which uses borrowed money to bankroll the 25-percent rate cut.

While Ford blasted the Liberals’ Fair Hydro Plan for its “shady accounting tricks,” his own rate-reduction proposal would bring 12-per-cent relief over and above the current 25per-cent cut.

“We’re going to be reviewing that,” he said of the Liberal plan he would retain. “That was, as far as I’m concerned, the wrong thing to do — borrowing down the future.”

But Ford conceded that he would not immediately scrap the Fair Hydro Plan even though he has promised a “commission of inquiry” to look into the government’s accounting.