Small businesses bearing brunt of abrupt GreenON rebate scrapping
Posted Jun 20, 2018 07:12:00 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The plan from the Ontario Progressive Conservatives to end Green Ontario Fund rebates is going to hurt small and medium-sized businesses in Ottawa.
That's the message from Executive Director of SMARTNet Alliance Ottawa Paul Cairns.
He told The Rick Gibbons Show on 1310 NEWS, contractors were benefiting from people needing new windows and insulation, among other energy-efficient items, installed in their homes. Now, they are losing many of those contracts due to a lack of notice being given.
“I was at an event [Tuesday] night and was talking to someone who said they found out [about the rebates being cancelled] because their window installer called and said, 'Hey, you have until 12 o'clock tonight to decide whether or not you want to go ahead with this.' And then he said, 'Can it be done by August 31st?' And the window guy said 'No.' So he had to cancel that contract,” explained Cairns.
Premier-Designate Doug Ford's move to end the rebate program came quietly on Tuesday, with the government's Green Ontario Fund website reduced to a single page, advising the end of the program and rules around rebates-in-progress.
Cairns said the program is being killed in its infancy, so Ontarians never really got to see its benefit, also adding that the Doug Ford-lead PCs could have gone about cancelling the green fund rebates in a way that was less abrupt, allowing businesses to adjust and see through more contracts which had already been scheduled past August 31.
Listen to the full conversation with Paul Cairns:
