Gilles_BissonWith electricity rates set to skyrocket, today’s announcement that funding for the Northern Industrial Electricity Rate program will be frozen at $120 million per year couldn’t come at a worse time for job-seekers in northern Ontario, said Gilles Bisson, NDP House Leader and MPP for Timmins-James Bay.

“This rate relief program was originally funded at $150 million per year, and now it’s $120 million per year,” said Bisson. “And with funding for this program now frozen, this is just another cut. We can’t attract industry and create jobs in the north when the value of this rate relief program keeps getting whittled away.”

Today’s announcement does nothing to create jobs in northern Ontario.

According to Ontario’s Long-Term Energy Plan, industrial electricity rates are projected to rise more than 32% from 2013 to 2018. Industrial customers will also continue to pay the Debt Retirement Charge, which was recently found to have generated more than $11.5 billion dollars to “retire” a debt of only $7.5 billion, which still remains unretired at $2.5 billion.

The government also plans to sell off Hydro One, which generates nearly a billion dollars in annual profits. Without this revenue, Ontario’s electricity consumers will be forced to pay the difference, on top of whatever rate increases the private operators are able to impose.

“Hydro rates are going way up, not down. The north needs more electricity rate relief, not less,” said Bisson. “This funding freeze couldn’t have come at a worse time for northern energy consumers.”