Tom Adams
Toronto Star
January 8, 2002

Re Harris irresponsible to deregulate hydro
Dec. 20.

In arguing against restructuring Ontario’s power system, the Star opines: "It isn’t as if Ontario is experiencing an electricity crisis."

The Star might remember that, in 1997, Ontario Hydro announced that it was unable to meet the financial requirements of our governing electricity legislation, effectively declaring the public sector equivalent of bankruptcy.

In 1993, then Ontario Hydro chairman Maurice Strong accurately forecast this collapse, telling everyone who would listen that Ontario Hydro was "a corporation in crisis."

The deteriorating financial condition of our power system is by no means the whole extent of our crisis.

Government-funded megaprojects have created some of Ontario’s worst environmental problems, too.

If the Ontario government can be forced to stick to its promise that taxpayers will no longer be involuntary investors in electricity investments, our environment will heave a sigh of relief.

Although there are many legitimate reasons to criticize Mike Harris’ electricity structuring — rising taxpayer liabilities to pay for nuclear expansion, continuing subsidies for industrial power guzzlers and unnecessary 70 per cent increases in distribution rates are only a few examples — on balance, the restructuring’s merits — like breaking down bills into the constituent costs, opening the transmission system to competitors and introducing regulation for monopoly elements of the power system — outweigh the disbenefits.

Tom Adams
Executive Director
Energy Probe
Toronto