Ontario Launches Defensive Electricity Ads

TORONTO -- A $1.4-million media blitz and a $25,000 consultant are the latest weapons from the Ontario government in a campaign to defuse voter discontent over sky-high electricity rates resulting from its deregulation policies.

The ads are designed to portray the government as acting decisively to bring down electricity bills, which soared after Premier Ernie Eves opened the generation market to competition on May 1.

The consultant will be reviewing the charges that appear on electricity bills to see if they are reasonable and to come up with recommendations on making the bills more understandable, Energy Minister John Baird said.

"Our electricity bill now itemizes a whole host of different charges, many of which were simply hidden the past," said Baird, who recently had difficulty explaining a bill to a legislative committee. "It is confusing and unnecessary."

Among the costs to be reviewed are customer charges levied by local utilities, which vary widely across the province.

Baird said he wanted to know why, for example, the charge is low in Thunder Bay, higher in Toronto while publicly owned Hydro One charges even more.

The review is being done by Sal Badali of Deloitte Consulting in Toronto, who conceded he found his own bill "somewhat confusing" and aimed to come up with ideas for a standard bill that's easy to understand.

"I've done a lot of work with stakeholder analysis and facilitation in the past professionally," said Badali, who will deliver a progress report to Baird in a month.

Liberal energy critic Michael Bryant said the Conservative government is continuing on its "journey of incompetence" as it tries to clean up the deregulation "mess" it created.

"This should have been done a year ago," said Bryant. "The incompetence costs of having to do it after they opened up the marketplace are an enormous waste of taxpayer dollars."

The ad campaign, which touts the government's "action plan" to bring stability to the electricity market, makes no mention of the decision to deregulate the industry in the first place.

In a surprising policy reversal, Eves announced last month that he was freezing electricity rates to consumers at 4.3 cents a kilowatt-hour retroactive to May 1. He also promised rebates for all higher costs.

"It wasn't a time to weather the storm and it wasn't the time for a quick fix," said Baird. "It was a time for swift and decisive action."

SOURCE: Canadian Press