Clark predicts lower hydro rates

Wynne’s privatization guru says new capital will help Hydro One’s performance

Premier Kathleen Wynne’s privatization guru is predicting the good kind of sticker shock for Hydro One customers.

Ed Clark insists the upcoming partial sell-off of the Hydro One transmission utility should lead to lower electricity rates for consumers.

“We believe that having Hydro One broadly held will have a favourable impact on electricity rates over time,” Clark told a legislative committee at Queen’s Park on Tuesday.

“Injecting new capital — and, for that matter, private sector discipline — should improve Hydro One’s business performance.”

“Strongly performing companies typically reduce costs and improve service. When this happens the benefits are passed onto ratepayers through lower rates than would otherwise occur,” he said.

Clark, head of the premier’s advi- sory council on monetizing government assets and architect of the sale of up to 60 per cent of Hydro One, tried to dispel critics’ warnings that rates will jump from privatization.

“Hydro One does not set its rates now nor will it do so as a private company — that is the mandate of the Ontario Energy Board and the board is indifferent as to whether the owner is public or private.”

No single shareholder of the semiprivate utility, which controls almost all of Ontario’s transmission lines, will be allowed to own more than 10 per cent of the company.

Countering Clark’s rosy vision, Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, said “privatization won’t save us money — it will cost us more.”

“The guiding principle of the 2015 Ontario budget is cannibalism. The budget says we can only afford public infrastructure if we cut services and sell assets,” Thomas told the legislative committee.