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Standing on the shores of Lake Erie, Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory vowed this morning to spend up to $1.3-billion to clean up Ontario coal-fired power plants – and then close them down.

With the Ontario Power Generation”s Nanticoke coal plant as a backdrop, Mr. Tory slammed Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty for breaking a 2003 election promise to close the province's coal-fired plants by 2007.

“It turns out that Mr. McGuinty had no plan for how to close the coal plants by 2007,” Mr. Tory said. “He made the promise even though it couldn't possibly be kept.”

The Conservative leader said he would have OPG install scubbers at Nanticoke and other coal-fired plants, technology that removes toxins like sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide, but does nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

He said the cost would range from $600-million to $1.3-billion, depending on the number of units that had the scrubbers installed.

The Liberal government initially promised to close the plants by 2007, then changed that to 2009. They now vowed to eliminate coal from the power supply by 2014, and had the provincial power planning agency produce a plan to meet that date.

Mr. Tory said he would hope to meet that date for closing the plants as well, but would not commit to it, and said they would remain open until a reliable, replacement supplies were available.

Asked why he would spend so money on scrubbers if he hoped to close the plants by 2014, Mr. Tory said they cause to serious health problems in Ontario, and contribute to as many as 1,900 deaths.

In a release yesterday, Liberal Energy Minister Dwight Duncan said the scrubbers would only remove some toxins, and the best answer is to close the plants as quickly as possible.

“Putting scrubbers on coal plants is like putting filters on cigarettes,” he said. “It's still dirty and it's still deadly.”

“John Tory would allow those dirty emissions to pollute our air indefinitely. We can't allow that to happen.”