Ontario Electricity Regulation Crisis Report Part 125 Guest Post: Stonewalled by Guardians

What follows is a guest post presented by two former Toronto Hydro employees, Paul Kahnert and David Grant. They document their unsuccessful efforts on behalf of a larger group of retirees with intimate knowledge of the utility to engage the City’s Ombudsman, the City’s Auditor General, and the Ontario Energy Board in investigating malpractice at …

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Guest Post: “Who Will Regulate Electricity Distribution?” by Jay Shepherd

Toronto Hydro is by far the most costly and least reliable large urban electricity distribution utility in Ontario. But, behind the fog of the New Year’s holiday season the OEB slipped out approval for yet another whopping suite of rate increases, rewarding more bad behaviour at Toronto Hydro. Typical of the standards of truth that …

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Ontario Electricity Regulation Crisis Report Part 124: Toronto’s Interim Ombudsman Responds

I received the attached letter from the City of Toronto Interim Ombudsman in response to my posting at Part 122 of this series. The new letter, which follows a letter from Hydro One’s ombudsman (Part 123), characterizes my comments in Part 122 as containing “misleading statements”. I have comments on several details of that letter. …

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Ontario Electricity Regulation Crisis Report Part 122: Is Hydro One’s New Ombudsman Trustworthy?

Readers of this site following my reporting on interactions between Toronto Hydro and the Ontario Energy Board might recall an application I filed with Fiona Crean, Toronto’s ombudsman, in January this year. The final disposition of that application provides a disappointing indicator of what Hydro One consumers might expect, or not expect, from Ms. Crean, …

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Privatizing the Ontario Energy Board

As if the Ontario government was trying to find ways to privatize Hydro One as harmfully to the public interest as possible, the government has decided to link the Ontario Energy Board directly to the senior executive group at Hydro One. See the May 22 email from OEB Chair Rosemarie Leclair, appended below, announcing new …

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Ontario Electricity Regulation Crisis Report Part 121: Toronto Hydro Exec Comp

Energy workers, including executives, should be paid what they are worth. In general, executive compensation in Ontario’s power system is reasonable, although overall pay scales in general within regulated and government-owned utilities are excessive. While most utility CEOs in Ontario appear to me reasonably compensated, the situation at Toronto Hydro is different.

Ontario Electricity Regulation Crisis Report Part 120: Application to Toronto Ombudsman

(Earlier today, I submitted the following request to Fiona Crean, Ombudsman, City of Toronto.) I am writing to request your office undertake an investigation into the April 15, 2014 Union Street Blackout that knocked out power to about one quarter of the City of Toronto. The factors causing that event and the utility’s response to …

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Ontario Electricity Regulation Crisis Report Part 119: Gold-Plated Garbage Cans at Toronto Hydro

Toronto Hydro pumps out relentless propaganda about its “aging infrastructure” and “obsolete equipment”. In 2012, the utility warned that without a dramatic increase in its rate of capital spending, public safety is at risk. Toronto Hydro’s latest critical infrastructure renewal target: garbage cans. Price tag for the 160 replacement garbage cans?