Kvetching Turds

Everything has a price, so without specifics it’s hard to really come down on either side of do/don’t sell Toronto Hydro, but in a purely selfish respect I happen to think Smitherman is right here:

Front-runner George Smitherman, former deputy premier to Dalton McGuinty, and a former Ontario energy and infrastructure minister, told the audience that the city must hold on to ownership of Toronto Hydro. It’s about the way they are treated as customers, he told them.

“They’ve seen what happens when we lose control of public assets like we did with Highway 407,” he elaborated in a brief interview after the debate.

I regularly deal with both Enbridge and Toronto Hydro. Toronto Hydro is usually (not always) surprisingly good to deal with. Surprising compared to Enbridge, which always manages to disappoint no matter how low my expectations get. I’ve had the exact same issue with both companies (wrong meters being applied to wrong people) be resolved in two different ways:

1. “Ok, we’ll make those adjustments and send over revised billing” (which was then sent over).

2. “Ok, we’ll have to launch an investigation, which typically takes about six months” (which then took slightly less than six months for a letter to arrive with a conclusion, with no supporting documentation, and no return of several voicemails requesting any backup/documentation for the result.”

You can guess which was which.