Gas plant promise costs you $275,000,000

Updated The province’s auditor general says the Ontario public is on the hook for $275 million to pay for an election promise made by former Premier Dalton McGuinty.

Auditor general Jim McCarter says that’s the cost of cancelling a natural gas-fired power plant that was going to be built in Mississauga. And the cost is a lot higher than the provincial government reported.

This has been called a political decision to save Liberal seats in last year’s provincial election. Former Premier McGuinty cancelled the power plant just before the vote even though the contract had been signed and sealed. And because the builders had an ironclad contract, the cost of getting out of it was huge. Al Sweeney has reaction from Queen’s Park.