TORONTO

An Ontario Liberal MPP compared his government’s costly cancellation of two gas plants to the U.S. decision to go into space.

“Just the same way as when the United States committed to go to the moon, they didn’t know how much it was going to cost,” Mississauga-Streetsville MPP Bob Delaney said Thursday. “All they knew is that one way or the other they were going to get there.”

Tory energy critic Vic Fedeli said he may have used the comparison because hydro bills are “headed to the moon.”

The Ontario government cancelled signed contracts with two private companies to build gas plants, first in Oakville in 2010, and then in Mississauga in 2011.

Locals residents in both communities were strongly opposed to the projects.

Ontario auditor general Jim McCarter released a report Monday which states that the full cost to taxpayers and ratepayers of the cancellation of the Greenfield South power plant in Mississauga will hit $275 million, $85 million more than previously announced by the Ontario government.

A second report on the price to relocate the Oakville gas plant — the government’s estimate of that tab is $40 million — is expected from the auditor general later this year.

Witnesses at a government committee looking into the gas plant cancellations have said that the cost of Oakville is in the $500-million to $1-billion ballpark.

Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli said the Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats agreed with cancelling the two plants.

“None of them had cost calculations at that time,” Chiarelli said.

The oppositions’ demand for documents related to the plants during negotiations with the private companies drove up the price by putting the province in a worse bargaining position, Chiarelli said.

NDP energy critic Peter Tabuns said the Liberals were determined to save key political seats in the region, regardless of cost.

When negotiating, the government favoured speed over cost considerations, he said.

“They pushed the button, they launched this one, without giving any thought to the people of Ontario and how high they were going to drive their hydro bill,” Tabuns said.

Despite the New Democrat Party’s concerns over the gas plants, Tabuns said he would not push for an early provincial election because the public doesn’t want one.

“It’s a strange thing ... (voters are) angry enough that they think there are ministers that should be fired ... but never underestimate people’s aversion to spending money on an election,” Tabuns said.

Fedeli said his party would have relocated the plants to closer willing communities to keep cancellation costs down.

“On May 1 our hydro bills are going to go up almost another 10% and we know that there’s a quarter of a billion dollars being added to your hydro bill just for a portion of the cancellation of Oakville,” Fedeli said. “So I think the real loser here is the ratepayer and the taxpayer in Ontario.”