Reckless energy hikes hurting business owners and customers : Shelburne Free Press : https://shelburnefreepress.ca

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Reckless energy hikes hurting business owners and customers

Ice River Springs Water Company together with KTH Manufacturing, Chapman's Ice Cream and Shelburne Home Hardware raised this issue during a roundtable with three PC MPPs in Shelburne last Thursday morning.

Ryan L'Abbe, vice president at Ice River Springs, said that energy represented one of the largest production costs for the company and the recent rate hikes were cutting their growth opportunity.

“Ice River Springs Water Company believes in building a strong manufacturing base in rural Ontario. It will be very difficult for us to absorb the forecasted increase of 30 per cent in electricity rates into the cost of our production,” L'Abbe said. “Simply put, skyrocketing electricity prices are the largest threat to rural manufacturing job growth in Ontario.”

PC Energy Critic Lisa MacLeod said Ontario's businesses and homeowners need protection from the rising cost of Ontario's energy rates.

“Ontario has the highest electricity costs in Canada - mostly due to the costly wind and solar subsidies – and this is clearly a major problem for our manufacturing sector. It's time to end this madness and get energy back to being about stability and affordability,” said MacLeod.

Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MPP Bill Walker echoed those comments, adding that the current government was out of touch with the everyday business owners.

“Small shop and business owners shouldn't have to pay the price for the Liberal government's mismanagement of the energy file,” Walker said, whose riding is home to famous Chapman's Ice Cream. “Their production depends on stable energy prices, and they're deeply worried about where this is going. At some point you can't continue to absorb 30 to 40 per cent increases in your business, or you face closure, as was the case with Caterpillar and John Deer.

“We can't let that happen. We want them in our community. We need the jobs,” said Walker.

Area MPP Sylvia Jones agreed, adding that Ontario has seen one million job losses and the continued energy price hikes won't help turn things around.

“The number one issue I deal with in my constituency office is the high cost of energy. This round-table discussion today with local job-creators reinforces the importance of eliminating expensive and unsustainable experiments like the Green Energy Act,” said Jones.

Post date: 2014-04-05 18:19:46
Post date GMT: 2014-04-05 22:19:46
Post modified date: 2014-04-09 10:32:07
Post modified date GMT: 2014-04-09 14:32:07