This is absolutely absurd, that the Ontario Liberal government under the stewardship of Dalton McGuinty has steered Ontario taxpayers and homeowners into near desperation with the cost of energy due to the Premier's green plans for the province. Electricity rates have grown exponentially, and homeowners are hard pressed to pay all their bills, given the still stumbling economy and the fact that many people now are the working poor, the under-employed and the unemployed.

Collusion between the government and the energy providers to ensure that the hard lesson of 'paying for what you use' is well entrenched now, is hurting too many people. The province is producing an abundance of electricity. Sometimes too much for it to handle. In which case it seeks desperately to unload it from their inventory. Selling it at bargain-basement prices to other provinces and across the border to the U.S. Ontarians get no breaks.

Not only that but the disparity between charges for rural and urban communities is astonishing. I do know that at one time rural customers got a break and paid less, subsidized by their urban neighbours, and somewhere along the way that got turned around. Now, everyone in theory is being charged at the same exorbitant rate. And being urged to dedicate their use of hydro to off-peak hours.

Off-peak use places families where both parents work and there are small children at home in very difficult situations with the press of time to get chores done already compromised by too much to attend to, and too little time to devote to the necessary household events. The government's green schemes have proven to be excessive, costly, and a dreadful burden for families.

My daughter lives rurally. A single mother with one child. She occupies a small heritage log home that was modernized. It is heated with propane. She has no furnace, and cannot afford to use the electric heaters that were installed in the home to supplement the propane furnace. She uses a washing machine, never a drier, and even then uses the washer at off-peak hours only.

She never uses her dishwasher, and is exceedingly careful with her electricity use. Her monthly hydro bills through Hydro One run over $200. When she calls for information or explanations for the size of her bill she gets nowhere at all. The meters are now read electronically through the new "smart meter" system.

We live in a much larger house. I use my dishwasher once or twice daily. I use a washer and dryer, and I do my household tasks whenever it suits me, heedless of the urging to perform them at off-peak hours. Our electricity bills may reflect the usage we make of our appliances, but we pay an average of $170 per month as opposed to our daughter's $50-greater bill.

Does that make any sense?

Does Dalton McGuinty really expect the people of this province to be so grateful to his futurist approach to handling environmental issues that they will be eager to re-elect him? Heaven forfend.