The defeated Liberal government ignored numerous warnings from top civil servants that its scheme to borrow billions to lower electricity prices a full 25 per cent was a “bad idea,” says the former deputy minister of energy.Serge Imbrogno told a legislative committee Tuesday bureaucrats were asked for options to further reduce hydro rates by former premier Kathleen Wynne’s government in 2016 after waiving the 8 per cent HST on hydro bills, but the financing plan came out of the blue from the office of then-energy minister Glenn Thibeault.“We were a little bit shocked because it was pushing out costs today to future ratepayers,” Imbrogno, now deputy minister of the environment, said at Premier Doug Ford’s select committee on financial transparency examining the $15 billion provincial deficit.“More debt, higher cost going forward. Someone has to pay that.”Both Imbrogno and cabinet secretary Steve Orsini — who also headed the civil service under Wynne — testified they repeatedly expressed worries about the feasibility of the scheme to the Liberals, including in briefing notes to cabinet warning of higher costs and accounting issues later red-flagged by Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk. She issued a special report in 2017 that determined questionable accounting and financing for the plan will result in up to $4 billion more in interest costs over 30 years because the Liberal government was trying to keep $39.4 billion in borrowing off the province’s books.Among the potential trouble spots were the risk that charges to ratepayers for the increased borrowing, to amortize costs of recent electricity system improvements over a longer period, could be ruled unconstitutional as a tax.The warnings were issued as the government was failing in the polls with last spring’s election approaching.“In their view, the objective of providing rate relief superseded the concerns that I had,” Orsini told t ...
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