Talk:Ontario Hydro

Latest comment: 15 years ago by 72.136.174.221 in topic Question

Question edit

I'm curious to know exactly how Ontario Hydro handed over a $38.1 billion debt to us back on April 1st, 1999. Should it be mentioned in the article? Somejeff (talk) 00:37, 19 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

The provincial Progressive Conservative government of Mike Harris deemed that the debt load of Ontario Hydro (which was being financed at no direct cost to the tax payers from the electricity rates charged to customers) would be a drag on the privatization of the companies and render them unlikely to be sold at an acceptable price. So during the restructuring, the debt was reduced and assumed by a government owned body which was given the right to charge the successor companies a percentage of their revenue (in effect it was an accounting manoeuvre to take the debt off the Ontario Hydro successors' books while still charging the ratepayers for the debt). In the end privatization was abandoned leaving the situation essentially unchanged except Hydro's top management was expanded considerably to cover five successor companies instead on one large conglomerate, e.g. five CEOs instead of one, five CFOs etc. etc. and the new management wasted no time in vastly increasing their salaries compared to the old Hydro. 72.136.174.221 (talk) 01:02, 19 August 2008 (UTC)Reply