Ratepayer grills Wynne during photo op for hydro plan

Premier Kathleen Wynne was put on the hot seat Friday over her new hydro plan, not by reporters or opposition politicians, but by a ratepayer from Sturgeon Falls.

One day after she announced an average 17 per cent cut is coming this summer, Wynne was making calls to people across Ontario who had written to her to complain about soaring electricity bills.

She made three of the calls with journalists in the room for a photo opportunity, and while two of the people she called mostly thanked her for the announcement, a woman named Anita had some things to say.

Anita, who agreed to have reporters listen in on her call if her last name wasn’t used, wanted to know why the 17 per cent reduction is being achieved by spreading some costs over a longer period of time, akin to amortizing a mortgage over 30 years instead of 20, a move that will ultimately cost ratepayers billions of dollars in extra interest.

“That’s like a mortgage on a house,” she said. “With that extension I’ll be paying for my house five times.”

Wynne said current ratepayers were footing the whole bill for investments that needed to be made to upgrade the electricity system, and since people in 15-20 years will still be making use of those assets, it’s more fair to share the costs.

“It does mean it takes a bit longer to pay it off, it does mean it costs a bit more, but that’s how mortgages work and there will be a benefit to those kids tomorrow, but you’re ending up paying for too much of it today,” Wynne said.

“OK,” Anita said. But she wasn’t done.

“What about those peak periods?” she said, saying time-of-use pricing wasn’t helping people to lower their bills.

“That’s really a farce . ... People have done all they can, like washing at night and cleaning, whatever, turning down thermostats.”

While time-of-use wasn’t addressed in Thursday’s announcement, Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault has said he’s looking at changes to it as part of the province’s new Long-Term Energy Plan that he’ll introduce this spring.

Anita’s local utility is Greater Sudbury Hydro, but she wondered why the chief executive of Hydro One is making $4 million when people are struggling to pay their bills.

Hydro One’s corporate affairs executive vice-president said in an interview that they “understand and respect the question” about the CEO’s salary.

“What’s important to know about executive compensation as well is that it’s also anchored very much to performance, so I think what people are missing is that the CEO’s compensation, 80 per cent of his compensation is tied to performance-based incentives. It’s not just pure, base salary cash. He has to perform and deliver,” said Ferio Pugliese.

Hydro One CEO Mayo Schmidt earns an $850,000 base salary that could rise to a maximum of $4 million with bonuses.

Anita, who had Wynne on the phone for about 10 minutes, had some parting words of advice for the premier.

“One last thing: see that you get good advisers,” she said. “Like, you say ‘(high hydro bills are) my mistake.’ It’s not only your mistake. You’ve got a team there working and some of those are really bad advisers.”