PROVIDENCE BAY—A petition initiated by a Providence Bay resident who is fed up with rising hydro costs and the selloff and privatization of Hydro One said she is hoping will receive support not only locally, but provincially.
“I started this petition because of all the garbage going on involving Hydro One,” stated Tanya Giles, a Providence Bay resident, last week. “Hydro has continued to raise their rates even when we have saved power; delivery charges have gone up; and smart metres have been proven to be faulty, but we still have them and they still don’t work properly. And the government has sold off and privatized Hydro One.”
The petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario reads in part: “Whereas the overwhelming majority of citizens from Northern Ontario oppose the sale of Hydro One; the majority of citizens of Northern Ontario oppose the rate increase, which is the direct result of successful initiative to conserve and reduce electrical power consumption; the majority of citizens of Northern Ontario oppose the installation and continued use of the smart meter program due to the unreliability of their metering and billing as well as incidents of causing fire; the majority of citizens from Northern Ontario oppose the current inclusion of the delivery fee charges on power bills due to the unfair and confusing policies.”
“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows: call upon the Liberal government to stop the selloff and privatization of Hydro One, stop further rate increases caused resulting from lower than expected consumption, stop the practice of billing rural customers for line loss charges, and reverse the ill-conceived decision to install smart metres without passing on the expense for replacing equipment to customers,” states the petition.
Ms. Giles said the response from people signing the petition has been good so far, in the two weeks she has had the petition on display in various areas of Manitoulin. “The petition is also posted online, and I have friends that have posted the petition as far away as Thunder Bay. People can print off a copy of the petition or call or mail me for more copies. Basically, I’m looking for support from anyone in the province.”
“I’ve been working with MPP (Algoma-Manitoulin) Michael Mantha’s office on this petition and the more people we get to sign the petition the better,” said Ms. Giles. “The petition will be available to sign for the summer, and then I will present them to him near the end of August so he can present the petition with all the signatures in the Ontario Legislature in September.”
Ms. Giles can be contacted at 705-377-5231 for additional copies of the petition, or by mail at 203 Cranston Road, Providence Bay, Ontario, P0P 1T0.
