Cut offs at Hydro One

December 7, 2016

To the Editor,

I know that you are tired of these articles on the electricity fiasco in Ontario, but they continue and Premier Wynne has finally admitted it is her fault and she has no idea how to correct the problem.

But she would dearly love your vote in a couple of years.

As I have recently reported, Hydro One has a brand new board of directors appointed by Wynne and a spanking new CEO at seven times the pay of the old one. This fall they have hired a number of very high priced EVPs (you don’t want to know the pay for these folks) who Wynne and the CEO, Mayo Schmidt, say are going to turn this ship around.

Here is the comment on Hydro disconnections from one these recently hired EVP’s ( who admittedly is still trying to find the light switch):

“Our hearts go out to these folks. These are difficult times and we care for the customer,” said Pugliese. “With respect to removing hardware from the premises, we need to revisit that policy because, I’ll be frank with you, we don’t necessarily view that as very customer-friendly – especially if the individual is in a financial predicament that we’re trying to help them through.”

Well, isn’t that comforting. A new EVP making several hundred thousand dollars a year reassures you that disconnection “may not be customer-friendly.”

It sounds like Mr. Pugliese has a disconnection problem with respect to his customers (he is the EVP of customer service).

I continue to recommend folks in North Hastings who are having trouble with Hydro One contact the Ombudsman Fiona Crean for assistance. She at least met with us this summer and has nine months on the job now. She gets it.

And she has a track record of getting results. She can be contacted at: 483 Bay Street, South Tower Toronto, Ont., M5G 2P5. At Toronto telephone: 416-345-1505 or toll-free at 1-844-608-8756 or TTY at 416-345-5839. Also via email at Ombudsman@HydroOne.com or by fax at 416-345-6129.

Fiona wants to help folks caught in this awful mismanagement of electricity service, so if you are affected by Hydro One, get in touch with her office.

Bill Cheshire

Baptiste Lake