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Category Archives: Reforming Ontario’s Electrical Generation Sector
Don't show your bill
ENERGY PROBE PUBLIC NOTICE
"Don’t show your bill," watchdog warns Ontario consumers
Energy Probe, a national consumer and environmental watchdog, is warning consumers to avoid showing their gas and electricity bills to door-to-door representatives of energy marketers.
How to get out of your long-term hydro contract
Consumers who feel they were hoodwinked or misled into signing a long-term electricity deal can fall back on the industry’s code of conduct for help.
All the major retailers say if it can be proved an agent violated the code, the contract will be void. Retailers will investigate the complaint and if it is not resolved, it can be taken to the Ontario Energy Board. The code states:
Energy contracts have escape route
Many Ontario residents who signed long-term energy contracts after Aug. 3, 2001 will have a year to get out of them, no questions asked.
That’s because some retailers, including Hydro One’s Onsource and Toronto Hydro Energy Services, issued direct sales contracts — negotiated door-to-door — that did not comply with provincial law.
Tom Park, of the Ontario Energy Board, yesterday confirmed that consumers would have a year to get out of such contracts signed after the law changed August 3, 2001.
A matter of trust
For perhaps the 15th time in 90 minutes, Vicky Sipidias is pounding home the message — energy sales agents must at all times be clear with consumers who they are working for.
They do not work for Toronto Hydro. They must never forget that, either.
A group of 20 trainee energy marketers hangs on every word, as she demonstrates the pitch at the doorstep.
"Hi, I’m Vicky Sipidias. I’m from Toronto Hydro Energy Services."
Special Supplement on Ontario's New Electricity Market
March 18, 2002
Advertising Standards Canada
350 Bloor Street East, Suite 402
Toronto, Ontario M4W 1H5
Dear Sirs:
We wish to place a formal complaint against the Globe and Mail‘s use of what we see as disguised advocacy advertising in its six page "Special Supplement on Ontario’s New Electricity Market," appearing in the Monday, March 11, 2002, issue.
Power ad insert paraded as news
The six-page electricity insert that came with the Star on March 21 was slick and cheery. Feel-good stuff that government publicity factories dream up as vehicles for one-sided messages.
Dressed up like a special news section with a pleasant mix of stories and ads, the "special supplement" promised — literally — to enlighten readers on the wonders of Ontario’s new, deregulated electricity market.
Don't sign electricity contracts
Don’t believe door-to-door sales reps from electricity retailers who claim that you’ll save money by signing a long-term contract.
As of May 1, the commodity (actual power) portion of Ontario’s electricity market becomes deregulated. Instead of one government-owned supplier, multiple players will offer to sell you electricity. But this doesn’t mean you have to make any fast decisions. You have four years of price protection.
Ontario propaganda ad causes controversy
An advertorial published in Canadian newspapers last month has set off a major controversy. The issue is whether the six-page advertising supplement, paid for by the Ontario government, represents propaganda on behalf of the impending opening of the province’s market to competition.
Electricity Metering
Electricity Metering Options for
Ordinary Consumers in Competitive
Electricity Markets
Prepared with the financial assistance of Industry Canada
Executive Summary
In Canada, the United States and many other jurisdictions around the world electricity markets are changing. Liberalization, including commodity price deregulation and customer choice, already exists in one Canadian jurisdiction, is imminent in another and under active consideration in several more.
Ontario's Electricity Restructuring Causes Rates to Rise
Rates for Toronto Hydro’s low-volume residential customers have increased 14.5 per cent since Ontario‘s restructured electricity market began in 1999. Continue reading
Energy Probe 