Hydro One and OEB salaries under fire

Staffers from the Ontario Energy Board and Hydro One outnumbered consumers at a public consultation meeting Thursday night. And the consumers wondered how much that was going to cost them.

Hydro One executive salaries and the money it is spending on trying to win over the public as it applies to the OEB for a rate hike, came under fire from the dozen or so members of the public who attended the meeting at the Ancaster Rotary Centre.

“How much of my monthly bill is going toward paying Hydro One staff?” Sarah Warry-Poljanski asked Hydro One staffers at the meeting. “Your executives are being paid an exorbitant amount.”

This meeting tonight is costing money to rent this space and you’re paying all these people to be here.”

Warry-Poljanski represents a grass-roots organization called Hamiltonians Against High Hydro. The married mom has organized rallies at City Hall and Gage Park to voice opposition to Hydro One’s high rates, which she says puts some residents in the position of having to choose between heating homes and putting food on the table.

“We are starting to struggle with our payments,” she said in her presentation, which is to be considered by the OEB as it decides whether or not to allow Hydro One’s proposed increases. “People’s incomes are not going up at the rate of inflation.”

The ask by Hydro One coincides with the province’s new Fair Hydro Act, which came into effect June 1. The act is expected to lower electricity bills by 25 per cent on average for urban residential customers and provide additional relief for rural residential customers.

But at the same time, Hydro One wants to hike its rates beginning in 2018 to replace aging infrastructure. For instance, there are 1.6 million hydro poles across Ontario. Each has an average lifespan of 62 years. Hydro One says 280,000 poles are already beyond that age and 120,000 others will reach that mark in the next five years.

A typical “medium-density” customer — an urban homeowner — pays $154 per month. After July 1, when the new act is reflected on bills, the cost will drop to $116. If Hydro One’s rate hike is approved, the monthly average will be raised by $4, bringing the average bill to $120. For rural customers, those same numbers go from an average of $177 per month, down to $122, then back up to $124. So Hydro One says customers will still save.

But Warry-Poljanski says it is not enough. And Hydro One will continue to raise the rate each year.

“For some people, that $2 (increase) has to come out of something else,” she said. “Are those costs (for upgrades and repairs) not already in my bill? Do you guys just leave everything until it’s ready to fail?”

Ben Levitt, the provincial Progressive Conservative candidate for Hamilton West-AncasterDundas, also addressed the meeting. He said hydro rates are the issue he hears about most from constituents and people tell him they want Hydro One executive salaries to be cut.

He also took a swipe at the Liberal government, saying its strategy is to simply “kick the can down the road so they can win re-election” rather than dealing with the issue head-on.

The OEB is holding consultation meetings in communities across the province.