Reporting on the regulatory conflict between Toronto Hydro and the Ontario Energy Board.
A motion adopted by Toronto City Council this week has “requested” that Tony’s Hydro “conduct a review of the September 2016 power outages in the CityPlace neighbourhood”. The motion is inaction pretending to be action.
In Part 132 of this series, I reported on the two root causes of the CityPlace blackouts. Contrary to Toronto Hydro’s claims, the blackouts were not caused by aging infrastructure but by overloaded infrastructure. Toronto Hydro first neglected to plan for and provide sufficient feeder capacity to serve CityPlace and then management negligently declined to …
Toronto mayor John Tory presented his case for the sale of Toronto Hydro to CBC’s Matt Galloway on September 22. Every element of Mayor Tory’s argument justifying the sale is nonsense. Yet, the very weakness of the mayor’s case makes a strong argument that Toronto Hydro should be sold. Toronto Hydro should be privatized because …
Folks following this series have seen it all before. The rash of CityPlace blackouts knocking out power to thousands of units in Toronto’s CityPlace district at the end of August and early September bear many similarities so many blackouts documented here before, such as Hurricane Sandy (October 2013), Thornecliff Park (March 2013), and Union Street …
In Part 129 of this series, I reported on the fact that the Ontario Energy Board has not been disclosing the up to date organizational chart the agency is using. The org chart posted on the Board’s site has some time in recent days been updated.
Part 125 of this series featured a guest post by two retired Toronto Hydro employees, Paul Kahnert and David Grant, documenting their efforts to get action from the City’s Ombudsman, the City’s Auditor General, and the Ontario Energy Board in investigating evidence of negligence, perjury, and fraudulent claims by Toronto Hydro and its CEO Anthony …
Are consumers able to get a fair shake from the Ontario Energy Board (OEB)? Every time anyone complains about power rates, the Ontario government leaps to its feet claiming that the OEB is protecting consumers. But, how real is that assurance? For decades, the OEB has relied on comparisons between Enbridge and Union to assess …
Readers of this series may have noted that in my efforts to seek the assistance of the City of Toronto Ombudsman in bringing to light governance and operational deficiencies at Toronto Hydro (presented in Parts 120, 122, 123, 124), I learned that a group of Toronto Hydro retirees was on a parallel path. Part 125 …
With credit to Boaty McBoatface, it’s time for Toronto to have its own Poley McPoleface. In part 126 of this series, I introduced initial documentation of a pole being replaced as part of Toronto Hydro’s so called “aging assets” replacement program.
Entrusted by Toronto Council to manage the city’s electricity distribution system, Toronto Hydro’s CEO Anthony Haines had another spectacular year in 2015 in both operations and compensation.