Canadian Labour Reporter

Hahn. The union has retained Sack Goldblatt Mitchell as counsel as it moves forward and Hahn said there are several legal avenues CUPE is prepared to pursue. "But we also understand," he said, "that this is not just a battle that must be waged in the courts. It must be waged in the court of public opinion." The union has so far invested $500,000 in a campaign to edu- cate the public about the poten- tial problems with privatization. There are plans for an extensive ad campaign and for the mobiliza- tion of supporters in community meetings across the province. "When you sell the very wires that bring electricity to a commu- nity — the infrastructure we've al- ready built — rates will absolutely go up. And we will lose control over this resource," Hahn said. CUPE is concerned about the effect higher prices and declining services will have on union mem- bers and their communities. "We will see real changes to the service itself and to the future of its expansion and delivery in our province because the whole gov- erning principle will be profit, not what's good for people," he said. Government makes its case Ontario Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli said an incredible amount of work has been done to ensure the people of Ontario are protected. Hydro One is currently subject to requirements of the Business Corporations Act and the Securi- ties Act. This regime will continue to apply following the initial pub- lic offering (IPO). Additionally, the government plans to introduce legislation that will enhance the Ontario Energy Board's powers to protect eco- nomic regulation. While 60 per cent of Hydro One will be sold off, the govern- ment intends to remain the larg- est shareholder by preventing any other shareholder or group of shareholders to own more than 10 per cent of the utility. "There are a number of other factors to protect the people of Ontario moving forward," Chi- arelli said. "The intention was to continue to have significant control over Hydro One, while repurposing that asset by taking the proceeds from an IPO, going public, and investing that." Those proceeds, Chiarelli said, are essential for the province to meet its infrastructure commit- ments. "We're falling behind in build- ing infrastructure to keep our economy strong and to assist in quality of life," he said. "The real- ity is to invest in infrastructure, the money has to come from somewhere. We could raise taxes, hypothetically. We could borrow, hypothetically. Or we could cut other services and put that money into infrastructure. We're not pre- pared to do those things, at this particular point in time, given the fiscal situation. That is the under- pinning rationale behind looking at existing assets and seeing if they can be used better." Chiarelli pointed out that the IPO will be open to everyone and unions concerned about Hydro One are more than welcome to in- vest in its future. The move would not be un- precedented. After Bruce Power was privatized in 2002, the Power Workers' Union and the Society of Energy Professionals acquired stakes in the company. Hahn, however, said the only way to maintain the integrity of the utility is to prevent its privati- zation altogether. "Hydro One is a public asset that we all own, in common. Our great-grandparents and grand- parents bought and paid for it with their taxes. Even in the depth of the Great Depression, in the in- frastructure that we had to build after World War II, in all of those times, no government ever saw it necessary to sell this… incred- ibly important feature of our pro- vincial government," Hahn said. "There's only a small number of people who will benefit from this." Measuring benefits Tony Dean, professor at the Uni- versity of Toronto's School of Public Policy and Governance, said it will be difficult to actually measure the benefit and value of an investment in transit and in- frastructure. "The proposition is that, done carefully, you can transfer the val- ue of one public asset to another," he said. "The biggest drawback, of course, is there's a risk of potential value loss. It would be difficult at the end to have a grand account- ing of that value transfer." Dean acknowledged the expec- tation of reasonable rates of re- turn for investors could over time put pressure on prices and trans- late into higher energy costs. The government's plan to remain the biggest single shareholder will be crucial in combatting this effect, he said. The broader concern, Dean said, is the process of privatization itself. The transfer of any public asset to any private entity is a con- troversial concept. "Is this a legitimate public pol- icy choice and a political choice? Yes it is," Dean said. "Is it contro- versial? It appears so, but not as controversial as it was 10 years ago." 7 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2015 CANADIAN LABOUR REPORTER news Photo: Mark Blinch (Reuters) < from pg. 1 IPO will be open to all, says energy minister In partnership with environmental and labour groups, CUPE is launching a campaign to rally communities across Ontario against the privatization of Hydro One, with an initial investment of $500,000.

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