CUPE sues Kathleen Wynne, two ministers to halt sale of Hydro One
CUPE follows through with threat to sue Premier Kathleen Wynne to stop further privatization of Hydro One.
Thestar.com
Dec. 7, 2016
By Rob Ferguson
A major union has followed through its threat to sue Premier Kathleen Wynne and two cabinet ministers to halt the further privatization of Hydro One.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which issued a notice of intent to sue two months ago, filed the lawsuit in hopes of stopping the Liberal government from selling more shares in the Crown utility.
CUPE and opposition parties have raised concerns the sale will sacrifice a steady revenue stream from Hydro One into government coffers and drive up electricity rates.
“They should not proceed with any sale until this matter is resolved,” CUPE Ontario president Fred Hahn told a news conference Wednesday, a day after the suit was filed.
He called Hydro One a “vital asset” that Wynne’s government has “no mandate to sell.”
The suit names Wynne, Finance Minister Charles Sousa, and Infrastructure Minister Bob Chiarelli, who held the energy portfolio when the decision was made to put 60 per cent of Hydro One on the market.
About half of those shares were sold to investors in offerings last November and in April as part of the government’s plan to raise $9 billion, and $5 billion of this was slated for debt reduction and $4 billion to improve public transit.
No date has been set for the sale of another tranche of shares as officials monitor market conditions.
Hydro One shares closed at $22.23 Wednesday on the Toronto Stock Exchange, well down from their peak of $26.80 earlier this year, but above their trading low of $21.53.
The first shares went out at $20.50 each in an initial public offering, while they were priced at $23.65 on the second offering.
CUPE claims the government was in a conflict in holding political fundraisers (including one event for which tickets cost $7,500 each) in which cabinet ministers hobnobbed with investment bankers vying for lucrative contracts to handle the privatization, earning their firms millions of dollars.
While the legislature last week passed fundraising reforms to eliminate what opposition critics called “cash for access,” the government has insisted nothing was illegal. Opposition parties hold similar fundraisers, where lobbyists and donors mingle with MPPs who could one day end up in government.
The Ministry of Energy said there was nothing improper about the fundraising, noting “the integrity commissioner has already reported on this matter and confirmed that there was no wrongdoing.”
Wynne said the money from the Hydro One sale is needed to help bankroll her government’s 12-year, $160-billion program to build more public transit lines, expand service on existing lines and upgrade bridges and roads across the province.
“The broadening of the ownership of Hydro One has everything to do with ... investing in the infrastructure projects that we’re talking about here today,” she said Wednesday at a news conference about the Eglinton Crosstown rail line.
She has argued her administration is maintaining control of Hydro One, in which no private stakeholder is allowed to hold more than 10 per cent, while unlocking the value of the company to benefit citizens stuck in gridlock.
