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PETERBOROUGH, Ont. — A single mom from a rural eastern Ontario community blasted both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne Friday for driving up the costs of electricity and driving her into poverty.

“I feel like you’ve failed me,” Kathy Katula, 54, told Trudeau at a town hall question-and-answer meeting that was broadcast live across the country by several news networks. “I’m asking you here today to fix that.”

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Katula told the crowd of 350 she’d lived a tough life, had a disability, and yet had scrimped and saved to be able to buy her own home and raise four children

“I lived off Kraft dinner, hot dogs, whatever it took to survive but I bought that home and I’m proud. But something’s wrong now, Mr. Trudeau. My heat and hydro now cost me more than my mortgage,” she said. That brought loud applause in support from the crowd about 350 at the town hall meeting.

“How do you justify to a mother of four children, three grandchildren, physical disabilities, and working up to 15 hours a day — how is it justified for you to ask me to pay a carbon tax when I only have $65 left of my paycheque every two weeks to feed my family?”