Utilities donating to Ontario Liberals
ONTARIO - Ontario's New Democrats want to know why publicly owned electrical utilities are donating to the governing Liberal party.
Elections Ontario documents show local utilities, including Essex Power and Oakville Hydro, have donated thousands of dollars to the Ontario Liberal Party in the past few years.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says with electricity bills soaring, municipally owned utilities should not be using ratepayers' money to make political donations.
The documents show Oakville Hydro gave the Liberals $8,500 for a 2009 byelection in the Haliburton area, hundreds of kilometres away.
Newmarket-Tay Power Distribution, which is over 150 kilometres from Haliburton, gave the Liberals $1,350 for the same byelection and another $1,000 for the central party.
Essex Power Corporation donated $1,700 to the governing Liberals to help them win a byelection this year in Toronto-Centre, nearly 400 kilometres away from its base in southwestern Ontario.
Other public utilities donating to the Liberals included Thunder Bay Hydro, Greater Sudbury Hydro Plus, St. Catharines Power Generation and Niagara-on-the-Lake Hydro.
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Egypt's renewable energy to reach 6.6 GW by year-end
CAIRO - Egypt is planning to expand into renewable energy projects in a bid to increase its contribution to the energy mix, the country’s minister of electricity and renewable energy Mohamed Shaker said.
Renewable power is expected to add 6.6 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2020, with plans to reach 8,200 megawatts (MW) after the completion of the renewable energy projects currently under consideration, Shaker added in a statement on Tuesday.
This came during the minister’s video-conference meeting with the British ambassador to Egypt Geoffrey Adams to explore the potential means for cooperation between the two countries in the electricity sector.
