Daily BrewOntario PCs would put crosshairs on NDP with non-confidence vote on gas plant controversy
Ontario’s new Liberal government may be brought down by old problems, as their Progressive Conservative counterparts seek to topple infant-Premier Kathleen Wynne on the province’s continuing gas plant controversy.
Party sources told the Canadian Press that Tim Hudak’s party would seek a vote of non-confidence in the Liberal government on the grounds that it has failed to address the cost of two gas plants cancelled ahead of the 2011 provincial election.
A special report found last week that the cancelling a gas plant under construction on the border of Toronto and Mississauga will cost the government a total of $275 million.
The government had previously claimed it would cost $190 million, although CBC reports that Wynne says the auditor's report calculates the cost of a longer period of time.
This was just the latest fuel used to attack the government over the long-running controversy. Another report is being done on the cost of another cancelled plant in Oakville.
[ Related: Wynne faces questions about gas-plant cancellation costs ]
It might be a bid of non-confidence against the Liberals and Wynne, elected party leader earlier this year, but Ontario's Progressive Conservatives are really dropping the hammer down on NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.
Everyone knows what the PCs think – they don't like the money the Liberals spent on the cancelled gas plants and they don't like that it helped keep them in power.
The NDP are a little more difficult to pin down. Yes, they don’t like the money spent on the gas plant, but they currently hold the balance of power in the minority government. A new election could change that.
As the Globe and Mail's Adrian Morrow writes:
The move is designed to ramp up the pressure on the third party New Democrats to help the Tories trigger an election. The NDP has joined the PCs in attacking the Liberals over the gas plants, but have left the door open to backing Finance Minister Charles Sousa’s budget and allowing the government to survive.
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The rub is that Horwath has made much hay as the balance of power, demanding concessions from the Liberal government in exchange for their support, or at least an absence on key votes.
The Liberals recently supported the NDP's quest to lower auto insurance premiums, and offered some $250 million in concessions in last year’s budget.
Indeed, the Globe reports that a new provincial budget to be unveiled soon is expected to have enough treats to make it hard for the NDP not to support it.
This is why Tim Hudak would be looking to force a showdown now, before the budget is introduced, and why he would choose to base it on the gas plant controversy.
As critical as the NDP have been about the cancelled gas plant mess, it would be difficult for them to suddenly declare they still have confidence in the government over the matter.
Of course, the NDP always have the option of not showing up for that particular vote, a move they pulled in last year’s budget showdown.
And for the record, the Liberal's stance on the gas plant mess is that both the NDP and Conservatives had said they, too, would cancel the projects and incur the costs.
The argument hasn't done much to earn them breathing room. They were the ones who did it, and perceived to have benefited from it. Everything else is semantics. And politics.
