WINDSOR, Ont.—NDP Leader Andrea Horwath rarely strayed from a single message Monday: Lower hydro bills. The background banner for her press conference even said the same.

Because, speaking at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario annual conference in Windsor, Horwath repeatedly hammered home her party’s commitment to cutting electricity costs.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and her caucus speak at AMO's 2016 conference. (Geoff Zochodne/QP Briefing)

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and her caucus speak at AMO's 2016 conference. (Geoff Zochodne/QP Briefing)

To do so, Horwath promised that an NDP government, if elected, would remove the 8 per cent provincial portion of the harmonized sales tax from hydro bills. Doing so would trim about $120 from households' annual energy costs, the New Democrats say. It was a pitch Horwath's party made in the 2014 election, but it wasn't enough to stop the Liberals from winning a majority government.

The HST cut alone would cost the province approximately $800 million, which the NDP leader conceded was “a significant chunk.” But Horwath said the Liberal government had cost Ontario over $1 billion due to the cancelled gas plants in Mississauga and Oakville.

“People need relief. They need relief now,” Horwath told reporters. “That’s one small way that we can provide that relief while we get onto the bigger project of taking the whole system and rebooting it so that the people of Ontario are in the driver’s seat.”

Horwath also said her party would reform the Ontario Energy Board and halt, then even reverse, the Liberal government’s partial sale of Hydro One.

On the OEB, the province’s regulator of electricity and natural gas rates, Horwath questioned whether the agency was still protecting the interests of consumers. She said the OEB’s processes should be looked at to judge how effectively it polices the energy sector.

Horwath specifically cited the OEB’s recent decision to lump the costs of the province’s coming cap-and-trade system in the delivery charge of natural gas bills.

“If you are doing something in the interest of consumers, you would have those charges up front, transparent, so that people know what is that they’re paying for, and not buried in a delivery charge,” said Horwath.

The NDP leader has long opposed the privatization of Hydro One and told the AMO conference she would continue working to undo it.

Hydro One, about 30 per cent of which has already been sold to outside investors by the Liberal government, actually announced Monday it is buying Orillia Power Distribution Corp. from the city of Orillia. Hydro One will pay Orillia, in central Ontario, $26.35 million for the utility and take over another $14.9 million in debt.

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Twitter: @geoffzochodne

AMO 2016: Horwath hits hydro hard, calls for HST removal on bills

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