WOW ... Even I have a hard time swallowing this story. It's a story of a lovely lady, who was bringing up a province called Ontario. One day her organization made a 1.1 billion dollar mistake. OOPS! We have the obligation to move on and I apologize.
If this was a business and we were all shareholders in this business and let's just say that our CEO and management made a $1,100,000,000 mistake. Not only that but it will have to be paid over the next 20 years by all the shareholders... does anyone reading this have an idea of what might happen?? Maybe you would fire the CEO and forget the "leaving" bonus?
I don't know about you but honestly, I'm scratching my head.
I don't share political views but I can tell you what I do look for in " CEO's". If I was to have someone running my business ( or our province), I would look at the qualities and ask a pile of questions to ensure I'm making the right decision. Unlike business, it seems that in politics you "fire" your member of parliament during election time meaning you have to get it right.
I don't judge a person by their color, race, creed or religion. Nor could I care less of the political party name. What I care about is the person at the helm and who he / she surrounds themselves with. This is what makes a good management team.
Now... maybe we deserve this.
Maybe we asked for it.
Let's think about that for a minute. Less than 49.2% of eligible voters bothered to go out and cast a ballot. That means the majority of the province didn't even try or cared.
Does anyone care now? Maybe if Ontario is lucky, the majority will educate themselves and vote. At least if we make a mistake, we all can own it.
Just to make things clear, I'm not anti liberal. I hate waste. It doesn't matter what party is in power, stop wasting our money.
I'll leave this with the statement made by our premier:
Premier Kathleen Wynne made the following statement today:
"In 2010 and 2011, the government listened to the advice of experts and began to build gas fired power plants on locations in Oakville and Mississauga over the objections of local residents. Over time, it became evident that the concerns of the residents in those communities were legitimate.
The government listened to those concerns and cancelled those power plants for relocation elsewhere - all parties agreed with those decisions. Estimates vary, including today's estimate from the Auditor General, of what this will cost over the next 20 years, but all of them are unacceptably large. Money is too tight for tax dollars to be spent in any way that is not productive.
As a member of the cabinet under which this happened, I take full responsibility and offer a full apology.
As a new Premier leading a new government, I pledge to you that this will not happen under my watch. My new government has the energy and idealism that is the enemy of these kinds of errors. We will introduce new rules, based on the findings of the Auditor General, to make sure this never happens again.
More on that in a moment.
But more importantly, it won't happen because my government and my cabinet know that our job is to improve opportunity and security for everyone in Ontario and that requires very careful management of money. Since my first day as Premier, I have been committed to getting all the facts out about the Mississauga and Oakville gas plant relocations.
I ordered full disclosure of documents, re-struck the committee, and on February 7th, I asked the Auditor General to examine the cost of relocating the Oakville gas plant, even though I knew there were potential political consequences in doing so.
We have provided the Justice Committee with more than 160,000 documents and emails related to the gas plants, including 30,000 directly from the Premier's Office.
The Information and Privacy Commissioner has credited my government for implementing important record keeping reforms and staff training. And the committee has heard from 62 witnesses during more than 93 hours of testimony.
I asked for this report because Ontarians deserve to have a full understanding about the cost to relocate the Oakville facility.
I met with the Auditor General yesterday, I have read the report, and I accept her findings. I want to thank Ms. Lysyk, her office staff, and former Auditor General Jim McCarter, for their work. In our meeting, I assured the Auditor General that we are taking action based on her findings. We all have a responsibility to move forward.
Firstly, we will improve the siting of large energy infrastructure projects by implementing the recommendations of the Ontario Power Authority and the Independent Electricity System Operator. Communities will have a say at the beginning. We need to ensure that we get the siting decisions right the first time.
Secondly, I have asked the Secretary of Cabinet to create new rules limiting political staff involvement in commercial, third-party transactions. Next week, we will release a policy statement so new rules can be put in place as soon as possible.
I believe staff in the former Premier's Office acted in good faith while the relocation of the Oakville plant was being negotiated. But from this experience there are important lessons to be learned. We are acting on those lessons.
It's important to note that the new facility in Napanee will help meet Ontario's electricity needs - the new facility will provide clean, reliable energy to schools, businesses, and thousands of homes.
(omitted)
I want to thank the Auditor General again for her report. We can and will do better."
