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As we enter 2018, here’s a legacy from her past four years as Ontario’s premier that Kathleen Wynne would prefer no one talk about.



It’s that since she became premier in February, 2013, there’s been a 19% increase in residential hydro disconnections, a 28% increase in hydro accounts in arrears and a 40% hike in customer debt owed to provincial electricity distributors.



By comparison, the number of customers grew by only 4%, from 4,416,713 in 2013 to 4,598,314 in 2016.

Photo by The Canadian Press

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Meanwhile, the number of hydro accounts disconnected for non-payment grew from 49,130 to 58,286.



Accounts in arrears increased to 392,963 from 307,822.



Money owed to provincial utilities by hydro customers in default today totals $134,855,199, compared to $96,461,640 four years ago.



This is hardly surprising given that disastrous Liberal energy policies pursued first by former Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty, and now Wynne, saw hydro rates double over a decade.



Small wonder Hydro One, Ontario’s monopoly electricity distributor which serves 1.3 million mostly rural customers directly, recently sought permission from the Ontario Energy Board to install pre-paid meters in the homes of people having trouble paying their bills.



Wynne sold off majority control of Hydro One to the private sector so she could fulfil her promise to balance the province’s books in the 2017-18 fiscal year.



Except two independent, non-partisan, officers of the legislature — the auditor general and Financial Accountability Office — say Wynne’s books aren’t balanced and her government is running another multi-billion-dollar deficit this year.