Ontarians have for too long been the victims of a culture of entitlement at Ontario Power Generation, says Premier Kathleen Wynne.

She was reacting Wednesday to a scathing report from the provincial auditor general that slammed the utility for its overly generous salaries, bonuses and pensions.

“I am deeply concerned about what seems to be the culture in that organization, which is why changes are being made. We are going to bring in legislation to actually allow us to have more ability to control those compensation packages,” Wynne told reporters at Queen’s Park.

Ironically, she had just spoken to members of CARP, a senior advocacy group, about enhancements to the Canada Pension Plan.

Auditor general Bonnie Lysyk said the “very generous” compensation for senior staff at OPG, which was created after Ontario Hydro was broken up, is being passed on to ratepayers, who face a 42-per-cent rise in their electricity bills over the next five year.

Within hours of the damning report being delivered, Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli announced that three highly paid senior OPG executives were canned.

The compensation controversy is just the latest to hit the minority Liberal government bedevilled by a litany of spending problems, including the gas plants debacle that could cost taxpayers up to $1.1 billion.

Asked why five Liberal energy ministers in the last decade did nothing to bring the OPG to heel, Wynne said her government could not deconstruct a culture overnight that was decades in the making.

“We need to have more direct control over the culture of the organization and over the compensation packages. This is a situation that has recurred over time, not just within the time that we have been in government. The culture is something that has been in place for some time,” she said.

“I am not going to be able to deconstruct what has happened in the past completely because I wasn’t making all of those decisions, obviously.”

The government is to introduce legislation in the New Year, she said, that will give the government new powers.

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“The controls that we are putting in place are new controls. No government has had the authorities that we are going to put in place,” Wynne said.

When it was suggested to her that existing Canada Pension Plan payments might be adequate if seniors were not paying too much for electricity, she tossed it aside, saying there is little connection between the two issues.

Dwight Duncan, former Liberal minister of finance and energy, who left politics, tweeted Wednesday: “OPG should be privatized. Market discipline will be much more effective at addressing the problems than political oversight.”

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