A story in the Toronto Star features highlights from a recent Ontario Auditor General report that pegs the cost of the government’s mid-campaign decision to cancel a contentious power plant at $275 million:
Ontarians are paying twice for a single power plant, Auditor General Jim McCarter says in a scathing report that found it cost $275 million to scrap a generating station in Mississauga and move it to Sarnia.
That’s $85 million, or about one-third, more than the $190 million former premier Dalton McGuinty claimed, prompting opposition parties to charge the government “lied” and providing fresh ammunition for a potential spring election.
The plant across from Sherway Gardens was well under construction and scrapped less than two weeks before the provincial vote of Oct. 6, 2011, a move Premier Kathleen Wynne admits was “politically motivated” to save Liberal seats.
The ongoing power plant scandal provides another telling example of how the politicization of the procurement process can result in significant unnecessary costs to the taxpayer.
