Tom Adams

May 13, 2002

Letter to the Editor of the Hamilton Spectator

Re: IMO Chairman wades into Hydro One debate (May 11)

NDP leader Howard Hampton has criticized the Independent Electricity Market Operator (IMO), one of Ontario’s electricity regulators, for advising Premier Eves about reliability problems that could result from a financial proposal the government is considering for Ontario’s transmission grid.

The IMO warns that the income trust proposal Eves is currently considering could starve the transmission grid of investment needed to maintain the reliability of our power system. Hampton, perhaps unaware of the IMO’s statutory duty to protect reliability, claims that the warning it issued is not a warning but a coded promotion of privatization. Ontario’s power system is in danger when one of our political leaders would place political gain ahead of power system reliability by demanding the muzzling of a regulator trying to do its job.

Tom Adams
Executive Director, Energy Probe

cc.
Howard Hampton, MPP
James Baillie, IMO Chair

Click here to read the original article " IMO Chairman wades into Hydro One debate," published by the Hamilton Spectator on May 11, 2002.