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60% sell-off of Hydro One would drive up bills: PCs

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TORONTO

The Ontario Liberals are "stealing" from hydro customers with a scheme to sell off a majority of publicly-owned Hydro One, Progressive Conservative Interim Leader Jim Wilson says.

The move will drive up their bills without paying down any outstanding electricity debt, Wilson said Thursday.

A published report says that the Premier's Advisory Council on Government Assets, chaired by banker Ed Clark, will recommend that the government sell off a 60% stake in the electricity behemoth.

A government spokesperson was not available for comment Thursday morning but Premier Kathleen Wynne had earlier said any proceeds from such a sale would be put into a Trillium Trust to pay for infrastructure.

However, her government has spent its way into a $10 billion-plus deficit and has other plans for the money, Wilson predicted.

"They're stealing money from hydro ratepayers to help get them out of the hole they've dug on the deficit side - this money is not going to infrastructure," he said. "It's a shell game... it's going to patch up their 12 years of fiscal mismanagement."

Legislation requires that any sale proceeds from Hydro One be used to pay down the electricity system debt which currently tops $27 billion.

Any delay in reducing the debt will only cost ratepayers more down the road, he said.

"It means they're going to break the law or change the law," Wilson said.

The Ontario Liberals organized a media lock up during Question Period Thursday morning to release the Clark report which will also tackle the Beer Store monopoly.

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