The 56-year-old life-long Athens resident said she doesn’t have any other choice. Last month’s hydro bill was $7,000 because of delivery and other surcharges – an anomaly, for sure – but her hydro bills average $2,000 to $3,000 or more a month.
“They kill you; they kill the little guy,” she said of the hydro rates, which cost a quarter of that only a few years ago.
On top of the hydro bill are property taxes of close to $4,000 a year and Canada Pension Plan and Employment Insurance payments of around $1,000 a month for her two full-time and one part-time employees. The government regulations and harassment by the “tobacco police,” who enforce provincial cigarette laws factor in as well.
Swan said she can’t make ends meet and is losing money every month, so she has no choice but to shut down.
These stories never receive national coverage. The narrative wouldn’t like that.
Why is Ontario punishing work and thrift? Is the provincial government channeling Venezuela and the USA?
The Liberal left want “good citizens” standing in long lineups to government distribution centers with approved ration cards in hand.
Actually a great percentage of Canadians appear to agree, whatever we call their political affiliations or afflictions.
Bring it on. If the public isn’t hurting, the public isn’t thinking. Unfortunately, and ’twas ever thus, the masses don’t start asking WTF until they personally feel pain.
They don’t start asking, and they don’t starting thinking ‘why’.
The sooner the hurt really starts, the perhaps the sooner we can change course – with some real direction.
That $7000 spent on electricity would have had more impact if it had been spent on a $6000 tickets to a fundraising dinner to get personal access to Wynne and the energy minister. Perhaps those suffering from energy poverty could then explain to politicians that there’s a real and negative social cost to high energy prices that’s substantially higher right now than the projected social of carbon sometime in the future. Apparently, Ontario Liberals are only willing listen to you if you are willing to donate big bucks to them.
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/for-6000-donors-get-face-time-with-kathleen-wynne-and-energy-minister/article29045039/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&service=mobile
How can you possibly be so small-minded and uneducated!
Don’t you realize that the EARTH has to be healed!!
These are the sacrifices that “we” have to make to make that healing possible.
So, give me everything you’ve got and then you’ll be righteous.
You might be a Liberal Economists if you are …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgoB2JMEowc
geezus saves geezus saves, just not on hydro
Sure would like to see a copy of that $7,000 dollar bill.
Small town Saskatchewan is now starting to see add on surcharges on water utility bill supposedly for future upgrades. Guess it’s easier than a mill rate increase.
I love hearing these stories of Liberals screwing Liberals. Just like Alberta, I love hearing the stories of people who voted NDP losing their jobs and crying the blues. Elections have consequences!
“These stories never receive national coverage.”
Even a North Korean nuke strike on Vancouver couldn’t bump a CBC News story about the lack of toilet paper on a reservation in northern Saskatchewan.
“Bring it on. If the public isn’t hurting, the public isn’t thinking.”
Couldn’t agree more and I couldn’t imagine a better province to witness committing financial/social suicide than Ontario. I will share some empathy though, for those fellow conservatives who are trapped in this quagmire and trying to fight the good fight.
The 2nd business in Eastern Ont reported as shutting down due to draconian electricity bills in 1 week. All of which was predictable, was in fact predicted well before the last Ont election. And that was before the disastrous carbon tax began on Jan 1. Wynne now is scrambling around offering subsidies to favoured designated groups (native reserves and others) to offset rates. She is in the absurd position of subsidizing Supply, lavish contracts to Liberal Wind outfits, and Demand, for the same commodity.
Wynne and her cronies do not really value small businesses. or rural citizens, indeed anyone outside urban centres and the public sector are suspect in her view.
Even with a disciplined conservative government, and none is on the horizon, it would take decades to return Ont to its position before McGuinty Liberals took power.
Ontario had enough of Harris and Common Sense.
Reap what ye sow
Alberta headed down the same road.
$1B annual interest on debt pays for a Calgary South Health Campus Every Year,. D’oh!
Any chance Trudeau could email down a hug to this poor woman. It would help so much to bear her burden.
Story in today’s Sun, which should help heal her economic wounds. A Superior court judge blasted two Iraqi immigrants that for 5 years had no job, no kids, no income other than welfare and got married in 2014 and separated a short while later yet went to Legal Aid to get restraining orders and then abandoned it only to ask for reinstatement. The judge was furious over the cost and why Legal Aid would even help this couple.
The Ontario Liberal governments over the past few cycles have managed to destroy Ontario just as Jerri Brown is destroying California.
The Liberals in Ontario are evil and mindless. More concerned about genitalia than economy or security or anything for that matter.
My advice to hard working entrepreneurial types … c’mon out west, (NOT Alberta it’s now Commie) you will be more respected.
West is best, but coast is the most …. (NOT Vancouver, it’s now Commie)
Why do people keep electing these progressives? Even after all their suffering at the hands of these demons, many will go out next election and vote for them again. One would think they would learn after the first few hundred times. But they don’t.
It’s a pig ignorant stupid on the level of a fly trying to go through a window.
On a more pragmatic note, I’m beginning to think that some of these people in rural Ontario might do better to rent/buy their own diesel generators and run them off the grid. $7,000.00/month can buy a lot of diesel . . .
Government sucked the life out of that business.
The fatal conceit claims another casualty.
The nonsense is demonstrable, but on they persevere with OPM.
Their failure is hailed as victory, but the struggle towards bland egalitarianism, excepting the gated ones of course, remains incomplete.
After all people still have disposable income. This must end. We are a part of government so can’t built that.
11 cents per dollar of “infrastructure spending” going to productivity enhancing projects, assuming no further white elephants. $30b well misspent.
Anybody want to buy a bridge in Victoria?
Now homeowners get to tell the revenuers they sold their primary residence, so watch for the tape measure with landlords first to the wall.
If that doesn’t crush the value of your home, no worries a 50% increase in capital gains tax will finish the job.
Don’t worry the most vulnerable are OK because we still have a $30b deficit, obvious proof of good government, so wise at throwing money at each other.
Yes, when we will big brother finally make us say uncle?
Sacrificing the Ontario economy and the rest of the deranged dominion in faith-based and isolated futility in the cause of deferring a theoretical distant future minuscule temperature increase makes the mindless voters feel good and what else matters. Welcome to the Spawn’s Canada and his Buttshole program.
Wynne is now bragging about how she listened to the people and will cut their hydro bills by 25% this summer. She is doing this by taking out TV and radio ads. Why? It’s just shilling for the next election at our expense because no one needs to do anything to get the lower rates, they apply to everyone who pays hydro. This is another rip off, Liberals using our money to bolster their next campaign.
Good idea, but you know that Morontariowe would regulate that option out of existence too! The green extemists want your penance and their pound of flesh to save Mudda Gaia!
“Don’t you realize that the EARTH has to be healed!!”
Sacrifices aren’t about healing – more about heeling, as in a dog obeying its owner.
The AG has warned Wynne that such adds are blatantly partisan.
The government caused the rate increases and now wants credit for subsidizing these for some at least. As I mentioned above subsidizing both Supply and Demand for the same commodity the very definition of insane economic policy.
The same government preaches electricity conservation, then subsidizes expensive electric cars and charging stations, promoting increased usage of the same commodity. Maybe both factions don’t talk to each other.
Ontario is where insanity reigns supreme and there’s no cure in sight. A few weeks ago Wynne told her subjects she had no idea people were having to make choices, pay hydro or eat. She was not truthful because it was being talked about by business people and ordinary consumers as well across the province. When she started to tank in the polls she took action. There’s no possible way she could not have known about the problem which had been talked about for months.
Now she’s buying votes for herself an her party with our money. Doesn’t get much lower than that in politics and the AG should get on it and forbid it. Wynne spends big bucks advertising her programs/giveaways. it’s money she doesn’t, the red ink is flowing.
It is/will be multiple levels of subsidies. Subsidies for: wind and solar installation, wind and solar production (FIT), wind and solar non production (when supply exceeds demand), research into new energy systems, for electric cars, battery backups, energy efficiency retrofits, large industies (lower rates), subsidies for low income residents and, if it hasn’t happened already,there’ll be subsidies for conventional fossil fuel power because heavily subsidized wind and solar needs constant, reliable backup power but the renewable subsidies massively distorts the electricity market. Now Ontario liberals are “fixing” high hydro bills by refinancing the payment plan on these projects by extending the amortization (and increased interest payments to future taxpayers, aka.the children). Basically it’s subsidies all the way down. How’s that sustainable?
Wasn’t it quaint when it was simply build a power plant, produce reliable affordable power and consumers could pay their bills on their own? Guess which system was designed by applied science and engineering and which was designed by politicians, crony capitalists, rent seekers, activists and liberal arts grads? Society has the wrong people managing too many things they barely understand.
No govt in Canada deserves to be annihilated more that the Ontario Libs. They may or may not be evil, but they are complete idiots.
Why can’t they just confiscate all the wealth of the rich? It worked in Venezuela.
I know a business woman who is an upholsterer. She is making money hand over fist for differing levels of government,payroll, hydro, even the local BIA. But for her family once the others take their “fair share”? Not worth it. She figures she makes less than minimum wage and she owns her own building and it’s fully paid for.
My Gawd, I though I had it bad under MoonBeam in Mexifornia.
You people are sooooooo screwed.
Get used to it folks.
The Ontario Liberals have thousands of highly paid political appointees in hundreds of agencies, commissions and tribunals.
All of them KNOW who it is that butters their bread…
There are over a million overpaid public servants in Ontario…
All of them donate to the Liberals and will be voting for them.
Say hello to our (Deliberately Orchestrated) Big Fat Greek Bankruptcy.
Ps.
Yoda says…Liberals, Channeling Moe Strong, they are.
Who did you vote for, Mrs. Swan?
Moe Strong is laughing in his grave. Everything is going to according to plan to remake Canada into a third world country in Ontario, in Alberta, and soon in all of Canada.
So what is the problem?
In Progressive circles this is successful “government help”.
A treadmill hooked up to a generator…that’s where this hideous gash needs to spend the rest of its life. With whippings when the output falls below a certain level.
It’s the age-old politician’s tactic: bribe the voters with their own money, knowing that their political memory doesn’t go back further than about 6 weeks.
This often reminds me of the “plight” of post-secondary students. I’ve heard all manner of caterwauling about how expensive it is to attend university with the cost of tuition and the price of books being what they are. However, they demand that their campuses also have the fanciest facilities and services. The one thing they forget is who’s actually paying for all of that. (That’s one reason tuition’s so expensive, dummies! Climbing walls aren’t free, you know. You want it, you pay for it.)
Similarly, voters want all sorts of goodies from their politicians but then complain when their taxes go up.
Come’on Kenney! Take the Alberta PC reins and lead the West away from a death by Communist insanity. Today could be the actual start of working towards a better tomorrow. Kind of ironic that the provincial PC convention is being held in a place called Red Deer. Still it might be a good place to begin the right changes Alberta desperately needs to stop the madness.
I left Calgary in 2008…to Barrie, Ont. Had I known what was coming ..I would not have made that move. We ended leaving after 3 yrs anyway: Super Hi Taxation, double Property tax, double car insurance…and the coming insanity of Wind/solar… with TOU Meters (a disaster), No regrets what so ever in Leaving to come back to Alberta.
And now that Communist POS in Redmonton is planning similar projects here in Alberta. Hopefully we will go back to being a Blue Province with someone that has at least a smidgeon of common sense. These EcCO-Marxists need to go…straight to hell.
If not.? Texas looks appealing.
The situation will only get worse until a true leader emerges to separate the West from the Eastern parasites.
Totalitarian governments strive to create total dependency. Economically crushing the population … seizing their wealth … because personal wealth = power and independence. Totalitarian governments cannot STAND to have economically-independent citizens. I weep for my Canadian bothers and sisters with every Wynning story I read
The people who elect them repeatedly are the real idiots. They get elected on the principle of what’s in it for me? Think special interest groups…unions. The city of Toronto is their stronghold.
I have no idea who Mrs. Swan voted for but I will tell you that we vote CONSERVATIVE down here. Stop with putting us all in the same category.
I live not too far from Athens and it’s sad to see that she is forced to close.
Hard enough to make a living in the rural areas without the government screwing you royally.
I’ve said here in the past that I think red Rachael would probably run out the clock and not call an election until the last possible moment in 2020. Not so sure now.
If Kenney wins, the Wild Rosers have said they want merger talks to begin immediately. If it looks like the merger might proceed post haste the ndp might panic and call an early election before the ‘right wingers’ are ready.
Hey it sounds crazy especially given what happened to Prentice and the PC’s last time out but the ndp are falling fast in popularity and their latest moves (carbon tax/budget) hasn’t produced any new friends. If they think they could pull it off they might just try.
Even if the NDippers in Alberta call an early election, it would be a risky move. Bill 6 pretty much guaranteed that they’d lose the farm vote. Considering how the oil industry’s suffering, Calgary might be a write-off for them.
The only hope Red Rachel has would be in Redmonton and I’ve yet to meet anyone there who admitted having voted for her. Then again, I don’t know anyone in any of the public service unions, so the comments I heard about her from the people I’ve spoken with would likely be biased against her.
When It collapses…and it will, watch the Liberals become sewer rats themselves as they scurry out of the way of a populace ready to skewer them ala Nicolae Ceausescu…
That this would happen in my LIFETIME…?? one can only fervently wish.
BECAUSE that is the only thing this retarded group of Progressive – Marxist – Globalist – Thieving bunch of (_I_)Holes understand…as it was with the NAZI’s.
I just received word by an email from Alberta PC Party President Katherine O’Neill that Jason Kenney has won the leadership vote! Hallelujah! Now deplorable Albertans like me can start hoping and believing that this will lead to us getting back to work.
Burn baby burn.
I guess that is good news if this exercise ends up in a merger with Wildrose and the leaving or turfing of the Liberals hiding in the PC Party and the defeat of the commies.
Every election we Conservatives try to get rid of the Liberals. My riding is Conservative. But a third of Ontario workers, work for the Ontario government. They are told to vote Liberal and their family members also. Really hard to change the government with a third of the voters against you.
I note that no one has mentioned the second item of note in the article:
“Like many Ontario variety stores, a big part of Swan’s business was cigarette sales, but government regulations, black-market sales of illegal smokes and the low-profit margin demanded by big tobacco have taken their toll.
Swan said it is impossible for her to compete with $20-a-carton First Nations’ cigarettes sold on street corners in Athens when she has to sell her legal cartons for $100. Even at $100 a carton, Swan says she makes only 20 or 30 cents a package profit.”
Until others make Liberal voters accountable for these rotten governments, one can expect to see more Mrs. Swans.