TORONTO - Ontario's auditor general is set to issue her annual report today, which is expected to focus on a loan to a troubled real estate project and smart meters.
In the legislature hours ahead of the report's release, Premier Kathleen Wynne said she won't pre-empt the report's 3 p.m. release, but the government will take her recommendations seriously.
Progressive Conservative Vic Fedeli says the government failed to take last year's report seriously, including on a backlog for autism treatment, ambulance service and school lunches.
The opposition parties have been hammering the government for months on a $224-million Infrastructure Ontario loan granted for the MaRS Phase 2 office tower in 2011.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said in the legislature today that the government has not been transparent about how the loan was granted and whether there was a business case, and she wondered if the auditor general also got "the cold shoulder."
Horwath also asked the premier to "admit that the smart metering program was not so smart after all," but Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli said studies show that time-of-use pricing has been successful at reducing consumption by residential customers.
