Ontario Energy Minister investigates Hydro One executives

- Energy Minister Dwight Duncan is investigating expenses filed by senior officials at Hydro One and Ontario Power Generation over the past six years.

Duncan is reacting to recent revelations that officials at the provincially owned Hydro One wined and dined Conservative politicians and senior aides, including spending almost $5,800 on hunting trips.

"I don't like this, I don't like this at all," he said this week. "We are going to examine expenses at both OPG and Hydro One."

Duncan said he fears that because the utilities had not been subject to Freedom of Information legislation since 1998 that senior officials there ran amok. After coming to power in the fall, the government moved quickly to make OPG and Hydro One subject to the law.

"The previous government had its eyes set on privatization of both OPG and Hydro One, so a culture took over in both corporations, in my view, that had them operating like big-shot private companies," he said in an interview. Former Tory premier Mike Harris had paved the way for Hydro One, which owns the electricity distribution system, to be privatized, but that plan was killed when he was replaced by Ernie Eves as premier.

Documents uncovered through Freedom of Information have shown senior officials at Hydro One charging ratepayers for expensive dinners and a hunting excursion at a private sanctuary near Wiarton.

The Globe and Mail reported this week that long-time Tory operative Glen Wright, while chair of Hydro One, charged the utility $5,758 for three separate hunting trips to a private island on Georgian Bay, including $297 for 27 boxes of shotgun shells.

It was Wright who fired former Hydro One president Eleanor Clitheroe for alleged expense irregularities, including spending company money to hire a limousine for her nanny and children. Wright, who was chair of Hydro One for 10 months in 2002-2003, went back to his job as head of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.

Duncan said Wright paid back the money before the story made print, even though the expenditure was approved by Rita Burak, a former top provincial civil servant, who is currently chair of Hydro One.

"I have indicated that I thought he used bad judgment in submitting those expenses ... and he probably agrees, knowing that these sorts of things are going to be in the public domain," he said.

Wright said the expenses were "incurred in the course of trying to sort things out at Hydro One (after Clitheroe was fired and the board resigned)" but "in hindsight, in public life, perception is reality and I should have found a better way to have done it."

New Democrat MPP Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre) said Wright should step down as head of Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.

"Talk about hypocrisy — Glen Wright nickel and dimed injured workers then turned around and spent thousands of taxpayer dollars on hunting junkets for himself and his Conservative cronies. That kind of flagrant abuse of public money has no place in the public service," Kormos said.

Freedom of Information Documents have also shown that Tory aide Deb Hutton, while vice-president of government relations at Hydro One, charged almost $5,000 for wining and dining Harris, his staff and political advisers.

"I'm looking into all the expenses and a number of them appear to be purely political," Duncan said.

Hutton billed more than $600 for a meal with Harris at Canoe restaurant in the TD Centre just two months before Harris left office in April, 2002.

Hutton, who was an aide to Harris before joining Hydro One, said she has no plans to reimburse the money. She said the meal with Harris at Canoe likely included other people, but added she cannot recall the specifics and does not have access to the documents. "I incurred all of my expenses as a direct result of my business responsibilities," she said, adding her meals were approved by managers.