While the legislature has been recessed, I've taken a breather from the weekly Toronto and Queen's Park smog. In between helping my constituents, I've managed to get some much needed painting, drywalling and insulation renovations completed on my house. Working with tools and being with constituents during the summer has been a welcome change from the endless partisanship at Queen's Park. But just because summer is here doesn’t mean there isn’t Scuttlebutt from Queen’s Park.
Hydro
Over half of the calls that come into my offices in Perth, Carleton Place, Napanee and Toronto are about the poor quality of service at Hydro One and their lack of transparent billing practices. Because of all the headaches that our disastrous hydro monopoly causes for everyday folks, I have been fighting to make Hydro One accountable to their customers.
After making the concerns of my constituents known to Rick Stevens, Hydro One’s Vice President of Customer Service, I wrote an op-ed for the Perth Courier to let people know just the scale of the problems with Hydro One’s billing practices. You can view that op-ed here. That has since spawned scathing news coverage from the Ottawa Citizen’s “Public Citizen”. You can view that article here.
Although, I've made some headway with Hydro One much more still needs to be done. Given the disaster at Hydro One, I have written Ontario’s Ombudsman, André Marin, asking him to investigate Hydro One and its billing practices. Though I have yet to receive a response, you can view my letter to him here.
Canadian Property Rights Conference 2013
As you may remember, last year I was a speaker at the inaugural Canadian Property Rights Conference. Last week, the organizers of the event announced that the conference will be coming back this year to Ottawa’s Lord Elgin Hotel on September 13th-15th.
The speakers list is even more impressive this year than last year and features names such as Stockwell Day, the former leader of Canada’s Official Opposition, Cato Institute Senior Fellow Randal O’Toole, University of Saskatchewan Law Professor Dwight Newman and many more.
For more information and to register for this exciting conference which I’m happy to be a part of, click here.
Constituents First
Over my years as an elected representative, I’ve seen first-hand a number of areas where Ontario’s Legislature needs more democracy. That’s why I made a presentation to its Standing Committee on the Legislative Assembly calling on our MPP’s to put constituents first and empower local legislators. I’ve made it into a booklet, which will be published in the Canadian Parliamentary Review sometime soon. You can check out my list of proposals to help put constituents first by clicking here.
That’s all I have for you this time around, but until the next time, have a great summer. As always, you you can see what I'm doing on Facebook, Twitter, or by dropping in or giving me a call anytime.
Best Regards,
Randy Hillier, MPP