Utilities donating to Ontario Liberals

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.