New Democrats claim Liberals misleading public about Hydro One plans

Ontario's Liberal government is accused of intentionally misleading people about its plans to privatize Hydro One to raise billions of dollars for public transit.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says Premier Kathleen Wynne does not have a mandate to sell the giant electricity transmission utility because the Liberals never raised the idea during last year's election campaign.

Wynne says the Liberals did campaign on plans to review provincial assets to leverage them to invest in infrastructure projects.

But Horwath calls that deliberately vague, and says Wynne can't even say the words 'selling' or 'privatizing' Hydro One, but uses terms like 'optimization' 'unlocking value" and 'maximization' of assets.

Wynne also uses the term 'opening up ownership' to describe the government's plans to sell 60 per cent of Hydro One, which Horwath says would be funny if the issue of privatizing the electricity system wasn't so serious.

The NDP leader says Wynne uses any language possible except the straight truth: she is selling Hydro One, which means taxpayers will lose control of the utility as well as a large portion of future revenues.