As part of its outages-are-assets campaign, Tony’s Hydro (formerly Toronto Hydro) is continuing its push to blame external forces for all the utility’s problems. Like it did with its recent article branding commonly used oil-filled transformer technology as dinosaurs, the Toronto Star has returned to the utility’s propaganda effort, this time on the subject of property insurance.

As one of the astute commenters on the Toronto Star site notes, the utility acknowledges that a change in insurers will have no material effect. Nonetheless, the Toronto Star has deemed the insurance switch as news.

In an apparent effort to smear the Ontario Energy Board, the article repeats Toronto Hydro’s vacuous claim that “It has also been ordered to prune $20 million in annual operating costs.” Where exactly is that order? Note that the Star declines to identify the order, which is just as well because such an order does not exist.

A more careful reading of the history supports the view that the utility’s irresponsible rate application last fall created the conditions for the irresponsible, unplanned contractor/operating cost/staff cuts now ongoing.

Meanwhile, the utility continues to crank out a blizzard of press releases highlighting minor routine service outages. Here is a commentary on this media manipulation tactic.

For those seeking a quick backgrounder on recent developments, here are some notes.