Lawrence Solomon
Toronto Life
May 1, 2002

"Nothing is too big for us. Nothing is too expensive to imagine." So argued Ontario Hydro’s megalomaniac founder, Adam Beck, before 700 municipal delegates in 1914. Originally set up as a transmitter, not a generator, Hydro was supposed to own the power lines while the energy would be supplied by municipalities or private companies, like those already operating at Niagara Falls. But Beck – the fellow whose bronzed form sternly surveys University and Queen – fantasized about creating a single combine that would also build dams, run railways, operate gas and water utilities and control telephone and telegraph companies.

Even if the 700 delegates doubted Beck, he convinced the province to back him partway there, and he and his successors proceeded to build the continent’s largest power company. Hydro dynamited or dismantled some 500 diminutive dams too troublesome to maintain from afar. Later, when it ran out of big rivers to dam, it switched to building coal and nuclear plants. Unlike other Crown corporations, Hydro didn’t have a regulatory board second-guessing its decisions, nor did it have inquisitive shareholders like a private sector company. Thus insulated, Hydro grew unchecked into one of the dirtiest, least efficient utilities on the continent.

Enter Mike Harris on a pro-privatization platform. To succeed, he only had to follow the lead of his fellow Tories across the pond. After the 1989 breakup and privatization of the U.K. monopoly, the new competitors swifty replaced outdated coal, oil and nuclear plants with natural gas generators and some high-tech windmills. Residential rates for relatively clean, private energy decreased by a third.

Inexplicably, Harris et al. ignored the key aspects of the British model. In post-May 1 Ontario, the "market" will be dominated by one inadequately regulated, government-owned company. Rates will rise, and – at least for the forseeable future – we’ll grow more reliant on costly, polluting coal and nuclear power. Tomorrow looks a lot like yesterday.