Category Archives: Reforming Ontario’s Local Electrical Distribution Sector

(November 17, 2001) The Ontario government’s moment of clarity on electricity deregulation was certainly brief. This week, Ontario taxpayers and ratepayers learned that Premier Mike Harris is in a panic about deregulation. Continue reading →

(November 17, 2001) Environmentalists disagree over whether the province should abandon deregulation of Ontario’s energy sector. Continue reading →

(November 17, 2001) Hydro One, the provincial government corporation that owns Ontario’s main electricity transmission grid, could be turned into a non-profit operation. Continue reading →

(October 23, 2001) An Alberta-based utilities company is poised to move into Ontario’s natural gas and electricity market. Epcor Utilities Inc. yesterday announced an agreement with Westcoast Energy Inc. to purchase its subsidaries, Union Energy and Westcoast Capital, for $176.7 million. Continue reading →

(October 23, 2001) Who owns Toronto Hydro? The obvious answer would seem to be the people who paid to create the utility. That would be local ratepayers who financed Toronto Hydro from its inception. Continue reading →

(October 22, 2001) Put your ear close to an electric plug at home or work, and you may hear a sucking sound. It is the noise made by municipalities vacuuming cash – hundreds of millions of dollars – out of Ontario’s electricity system. Continue reading →

(July 27, 2001) Consumers who haven’t signed a fixed-price contract are likely to pay about 4.3 cents a kilowatt hour for electricity under Ontario’s new market system, says a study conducted for the Ontario Energy Board. Continue reading →

(July 25, 2001) Many local utilities are months behind scheduale preparing for Ontario’s new competitive electricity market, according to the Ontario Energy Board. Continue reading →

(May 22, 2001) Ontario consumers may be unwittingly singing away a valuable rebate on their electricity prices to private utility companies, says the head of an energy watchdog group. Continue reading →

(August 18, 2001) One senses a new harshness in the deregulated world after a Hamilton Spectator story this week about a lawyer representing Union Energy firing off a letter to a customer abruptly demanding $1.53. Continue reading →