PAY UP! SOME MORE HYDRO ONE CUSTOMERS

On March 31, Hydro One filed a Distribution Rate Application for its 2018-2022 revenue requirement and rates with the Ontario Energy Board. In the summary of its request for higher rates Hydro One explained that, despite an expected reduced load forecast, less usage of its power, the, “… resulting average impact on distribution rates is an increase of 6.5% in 2018 and an average of 3.7% per annum over the Term.”

P!SSING OFF GUN OWNERS

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale is expected to table legislation this spring to get handguns and assault weapons off the streets and promises not to create a new national long-gun registry, but some rural Liberal MPs say they are anxious about any tinkering of the gun laws.

“They’re awfully nervous about what the legislation could be,” a Liberal source told The Hill Times on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the subject and did not want to be seen criticizing his own party. “They’re afraid it’s a backdoor to a gun registry like we had before.”

 

TAKING TRUDEAU'S GOVERNMENT TO COURT

Calgary Lawyer Clint Docken filed Wallace’s legal action in the Federal Court of Appeal last week, seeking damages for lost income and demanding that the government stop the selection process to replace Wallace on the nine-member NEB board.

Wallace's legal challenge alleged that the Trudeau government delayed enacting the law that repealed the mandatory retirement age because it wanted to get rid of him.

 

CRUSHING THE MIDDLE CLASS

It looks like Trudeau’s infrastructure plan is an enormous corporate welfare scheme at the expense of the middle class.

Last election, Trudeau baited Canadians with a big infrastructure plan to be financed with historically low interest rates.

Now he’s switching to a higher-cost private equity Infrastructure Bank.

RELATED: Trudeau's 100 billion dollar boondoggle

THE GREEN SPENDING RACE

Ontario has just trumped Quebec in designing and implementing an extraordinarily wasteful electric-vehicle (EV) subsidy policy. As of January, 2017, certain battery-powered vehicles qualify for purchase subsidies of up to $14,000. This follows hard on the heels of the Quebec government’s Bill 104 that mandated minimum sales of electric vehicles for all major vehicle manufacturers, beginning in 2018.

RELATED: The next generation of very green, planet saving, cool kids

COURTING THE BOOMER VOTER WITH A SENIOR PRICE INDEX

The Liberals first made the promise of a new index during the 2015 election campaign, and referenced it again in their maiden budget last year.

The 2017 budget tabled last month made no mention of the idea.

It did project an increase in seniors’ benefits — from $48.3 billion this year to $63.7 billion five years from now — because of inflation and a growing number of Canadians eligible for old age security and the guaranteed income supplement.

PROTESTERS DENOUNCE BOMBARDIER

More than 1,000 people — many of them parents with young children on their shoulders — demonstrated in front of Bombardier’s Montreal headquarters Sunday morning to denounce a nearly 50-per-cent raise for its top executives, a year after Quebec bailed out its aerospace division with $1 billion U.S. in taxpayer funds.
Bombardier was doing damage control Saturday in the face of an uproar over a hefty increase in compensation to senior management, but the company’s explanations didn’t satisfy all its critics.
Bombardier issued an open letter explaining the company’s compensation policies and called it “inappropriate” to compare the 2016 compensation to that of the previous year.