Changes under way at Ontario Hydro

Plans under way to overhaul giant utility Ontario Hydro will not be a “one-shot change,” says Chairman Maurice Strong.

Addressing a luncheon of the Toronto branch of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, Strong said Hydro has “had to entirely change its approach and psychology” in its efforts to cut costs and restructure itself and that it does not want to have to make major changes again in 10 or 15 years.

In addition to its corporate restructuring, the “new Hydro” must address other concerns, Strong said. These include regulation (should Hydro continue to be self-regulatory, or regulated by an outside agency?), privatization, and how it serves municipal electrical utilities.

Hydro expects to post a $1-billion loss in 1993 because of the restructuring, announced in March. Some 4,500 jobs will be eliminated from Hydro’s 28,000-member workforce. Rates will be frozen in 1994 and, for the rest of the decade, Ontario intends to peg its rate increases to the level of inflation.

Strong was flanked at the head table by representatives from major provincial power-users Inco and Falconbridge and uranium-supplier Rio Algom. Falconbridge, which announced it was considering building its own cogeneration plant for its Kidd Creek operations at Timmins, says it has placed that plan on hold in light of the Hydro restructuring. Strong was appointed chairman of Hydro at the end of 1992. A former president of Power Corporation of Canada, he has served with other government-related agencies and was secretary-general of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (better known as the Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.