After writing a concerned social media post, Libby Keenan is feeling “optimistic” about hydro rate relief
By Jennifer Jackson
After a social media post on hydro rates went viral, an Ontario Farmer recently found herself in a meeting with Ontario’s premier Kathleen Wynne.
Libby Keenan owns a horse farm in Amherstburg, and recently voiced her concerns over high hydro rates on Facebook, in a Jan. 5 post.
“I work hard, seven days a week actually, I live exceptionally frugally, I have spent 30 years paying off a mortgage on a beautiful farm I can barely afford to keep,” wrote Keenan in her post. “My heating and hydro costs are much higher cost per month than my mortgage was.”
On top of hydro rates, Keenan is concerned with other issues such as tax increases, decreasing quality of health care, and sparse job opportunities, according to her post.
“I do my own nails, cut my own hair, have never been inside a spa, recycle, buy clothes at Value Village, consolidate errands to save gas, and cannot even imagine affording retirement,” she wrote.
Wynne reacted to the post, and met with Keenan to address her concerns in person on Jan. 18, according to a Global News article.
Libby Keenan in the photo that accompanied her posting on hydro rates. Source: Libby Keenan, Facebook
In the meeting that was partially available to media, Keenan specifically addressed increased hydro delivery charges, as well as Hyrdo One's chief executive officer's four million dollar salary.
“Do we not have any ability to say, ‘I don’t care who you are, I don’t care if you’re the pope, you don’t deserve four million dollars a year?”‘ Keenan said in the meeting, according to Global. “He’s not working as hard as I am. Send him to me for a week and I’ll show him.”
Keenan said producers could see a difference in their hydro bills sooner than later
“Ontario farmers can expect in short order, substantial relief in delivery charges on their Hydro One bills,” she told Farms.com in an interview.
Keenan also told Global News after the meeting that she was optimistic.
This process did not require marching up and down protesting, “this has been the most polite revolution I have seen in my life,” she told Global News. “I was not being patted on the hand and being told, ‘Too bad for you.’
"Have we made progress here today? Absolutely.”