Kingston, Sioux Lookout win Count Me In! challenge

ONTARIO - Kingston and Sioux Lookout took top honours in the Count Me In! Community Challenge, an Ontario-wide energy conservation competition that included 83 municipalities, representing 56 percent of the population.

The winners were Kingston for reducing electricity consumption by 7.8 percent on the day of the challenge, and Sioux Lookout for the highest number of pledges per capita, 11.44 percent.

The winners were announced at the annual conference of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario in Ottawa. The province-wide Count Me In! Community Challenge was held on August 14, coinciding with the anniversary of the 2003 blackout that plunged some 50 million people in eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S. into darkness.

Count Me In! was organized by the Ontario Power Authority in conjunction with Mayor Michael Harding of Woodstock and was supported by the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, the Electricity Distributors Association, the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, Hydro One and the Independent Electricity System Operator, which assessed the outcome of the percentage reduction in megawatt consumption.