Premier Kathleen Wynne hopes to energize her Liberal government’s flagging popularity with a throne speech that will tackle pocketbook concerns like soaring electricity bills.

“There’s a lot of things that we can do,” Finance Minister Charles Sousa said. “Stay tuned.”

Trailing the Progressive Conservatives in public-opinion polls and stinging from a loss to them in the recent Scarborough-Rouge River byelection, Wynne is hitting the reset button Monday.

The Legislature returns from its summer break at noon with a throne speech — entitled “A Balanced Plan to Build Ontario Up for Everyone” — read by Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Dowdeswell outlining the Liberals’ agenda for the next 20 months before the spring 2018 election.

“We want to provide greater support in the pocketbook,” Sousa told reporters Friday.

“What is important here is that we find ways to help everyday Ontarians save a little bit more money. We’re taking many steps to do just that.”

The finance minister insisted the government can afford new measures because it is on track to eliminate annual deficits and balance the books in next year’s budget.

Sousa acknowledged hydro bills have risen because of new investments to make the electricity system more reliable after blackouts and brownouts a decade ago, and to make it more environmentally friendly by closing coal-fired power plants that were cheaper to run but heavy polluters.

But Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown blames high electricity prices on government schemes paying too much for green energy generated by wind turbines and solar power.

“No amount of window dressing is going to help Ontarians with their skyrocketing energy bills,” Brown said in a statement last Thursday.

“Every failed policy decision this government has made for the last 13 years has made life more unaffordable for Ontarians,” the PC chief said.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said too many residents of the province are “suffering,” with many “hitting the wall,” and she called on the Liberals to scrap the 13 per cent harmonized sales tax on hydro bills — as her party has promised to do.

“So many hard-working families are struggling just to get by when what they want is to get ahead. Costs are up, wages are flat, and good opportunities are few and far between in this province,” Horwath told a Queen’s Park news conference on Friday.

“We have to lower hydro bills. There are seniors and families who couldn’t turn on the air conditioner this week when we felt like it was 40C out there — because they can’t afford their hydro bill,” she said, urging the Grits to stop the privatization of Hydro One.

Echoing comments from Wynne last Wednesday, Sousa said the government is listening to those who are feeling a financial pinch but who also wanted a cleaner environment and improved public transit through projects like the Eglinton Crosstown light rail line and more GO Train service.

“We understand that we need to improve and mitigate the costs for everyday Ontarians so that they can have greater affordability, but at the same time we needed to make those investments,” the treasurer said, referring to Hydro One proceeds bankrolling transportation infrastructure.

While the next provincial election is almost two years away, Wynne will face earlier tests with voters in two looming byelections that could serve as a barometer on measures in her throne speech.

The Liberals hope to hold Ottawa-Vanier after the June retirement of cabinet minister Madeleine Meilleur, where University of Ottawa dean of common law Nathalie Des Rosiers is vying for the Grit nomination.

Wynne will also call a vote in Niagara West-Glanbrook, held since 1995 by Conservative MPP Tim Hudak, who is resigning his seat Friday. No date has been set for either byelection.

Niagara regional Councillor Tony Quirk, a PC party vice-president, and party president Rick Dykstra, a former St. Catharines MP, are hoping to succeed Hudak.

All government legislation that was on the order paper when the House was prorogued on Thursday will be reintroduced.

The first bill will be the campaign finance reform law that was the result of a Star series last spring.

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That legislation will ban union and corporate donations to political parties, forbid MPPs and candidates from attending party fundraisers, and slash contribution limits to $1,200 from the existing $9,975.

It will also usher in public subsidies of the Liberals, Tories, New Democrats and Green Party of Ontario by giving them $2.71 for every vote received in the 2014 election.

Annual payouts starting in January will be $5.06 million for the governing Grits, $4.09 million for the Tories, $3.1 million for the NDP, and $630,000 for the Greens.

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