The Canadian News Digest
June 7, 1996

Lower rates promised if Ontario gets competition  

TORONTO (CP) — There are suggestions but no guarantees that the province’s electricity prices will drop if Ontario Hydro sells dozens of power plants to private companies, ending a 90-year monopoly. That’s the bottom line for ordinary consumers from the author of a major new report recommending the provincial government make sweeping changes to the way electricity is sold starting in 1999. "I don’t think one can guarantee anything in this life," said Donald Macdonald, a former federal Liberal energy minister who headed a commission studying ways to open power sales to competition. Nonetheless, the report was applauded by groups and industries pushing for lower rates, a big issue for industries facing cutthroat global competition. The plan also invites power producers in neighboring provinces and U.S. states to sell electricity in Ontario, where the market is worth $9 billion a year. "Everywhere else it’s been tested, customer choice works, it’s lowered costs for consumers," said Tom Adams of Energy Probe.