The minority Liberal government moved a cancelled Oakville power plant to eastern Ontario without regard to the $513 million in extra costs that resulted, a top civil servant admitted Tuesday.

“It wasn’t one of the factors that we looked at,” Deputy Energy Minister Serge Imbrogno told a legislative committee investigating what Ontario’s auditor general found was a $1.1 billion decision to axe power plants in Oakville and Mississauga before the 2011 election.

Imbrogno, a witness called by the Liberals, was asked repeatedly about the $513 million in extra costs cited by auditor general Bonnie Lysyk in her report earlier this month.

“At the time we didn’t have a firm estimate of what that would be,” said Imbrogno, who also noted the final costs of moving the plants could be “lower or higher” than the $1.1 billion cited by the auditor’s office.

In the Oakville case, it was more important to find a “willing host” community for the natural gas-fired electricity generating station and Napanee was chosen over four other sites, he added.

“The minister felt comfortable,” Imbrogno said, referring to former energy minister Chris Bentley, who quit politics in February.

“Any site we picked would have had additional costs,” the deputy added, noting all had “pros and cons” such as the need for bigger gas pipelines or upgraded transmission lines, with perhaps $500 million in transmission improvements needed at Lambton, near Sarnia.

The ministry had a “high-level assessment” on the potential sites from the province’s energy planning agency, the Ontario Power Authority, said Imbrogno.

Opposition MPPs on the committee were incredulous that a more detailed financial analysis of the potential moving costs was not done and noted the Ontario Power Authority had recommended against the Napanee site.

“It was a minister’s decision. The OPA told us it was a poor decision. And now the ratepayer is stuck with higher hydro bills,” Progressive Conservative finance critic Vic Fedeli told reporters.

Napanee is 240 kilometres east of Oakville with higher costs of shipping natural gas there and electricity back to the southwest Greater Toronto Area.

“You don’t have to consult an energy expert to say, “Wow, that’s a long way from Oakville,’ ” Fedeli (Nipissing) said during an exchange with Imbrogno.

“Did anyone do the math? . . . Did anyone look at that? It was half a billion dollars.”

New Democrat MPP and energy critic Peter Tabuns said the Liberal government has been caught in a web of its own making in the extra costs for Napanee, where the plant will be built by TransCanada Energy.

“They told us all along the extra costs for gas management were going to be dealt with by reduced monthly payments to TransCanada. It is pretty clear that hasn’t happened,” Tabuns added.

“If they hadn’t done the calculation before, that was totally irresponsible. If they did do the calculations before, they weren’t straightforward and honest in dealing with the people of Ontario.”

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Opposition parties have long charged the government, under former premier Dalton McGuinty, scrapped the two power plants to save Liberal seats in the 2011 election that reduced his party to a minority.

McGuinty quit as premier last February after the Liberal party chose Kathleen Wynne as his successor. McGuinty resigned as an MPP last June, completing his exit from politics.

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