Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Toronto, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is ignoring opposition calls to fire her energy minister over a critical report on the government’s smart meter program and comments he made about the auditor general.
She and Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli say they disagree with the auditor general’s conclusions that the $2-billion smart meter program has so far spent double its projected cost, has passed on extra costs to ratepayers and has not led to the government’s electricity conservation goals being met.
Both the Progressive Conservatives and the New Democrats repeatedly called for Chiarelli’s head in a raucous question period the day after Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk’s annual report.
Chiarelli said in the legislature that NDP Leader Andrea Horwath has voted against Liberal provisions that would lower people’s electricity bills, which he called shameful.
Horwath, in return, called Chiarelli’s comments “disgusting, shameful, ignorant” and called him an “ignorant man” — comments she later withdrew.
Horwath says that Chiarelli should resign after he suggested the auditor general’s numbers were inaccurate because she didn’t understand the “complex” electricity system — comments Horwath calls patronizing and sexist.
