Eves skips Ottawa in search for energy answers

Snubbed by Ottawa in the formation of a Canada-U.S. task force on the big electricity blackout, Ontario Premier Ernie Eves tried today to directly forge an understanding on the issue with two border states. After separate meetings with the governors of New York and Michigan, Eves said he and the others had pledged to co-operate in their investigations of the Aug. 14 outage that threw much of Ontario and large swaths of the northeastern United States into darkness.

"We received a very good reception," Eves said in a phone interview. "We agreed we would share information."

Both states are doing their own probes of what went wrong and Eves wants them to provide the province with information they gather on the cause of the outage.

In turn, he promised to share data gathered by former Hydro One chairman Glen Wright, whom Eves has asked to look into how Ontario's electricity system responded to the unfolding power problems.

Speaking from Lansing, Mich., where he had just met Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Eves said he did not ask his American counterparts to help Ontario push for a seat on the bi-national panel probing the outage.

"I was not looking for their support," he said. "I did not want to put them in a position of arguing with their federal government."

The premier said he did explain to the governors that the supply of electricity in Canada is a provincial matter. In the United States, federal regulation plays a far bigger role.

"They understood that," he said.

The task force was set up by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and President George W. Bush in the aftermath of the blackout to investigate what caused the problems and recommend ways to avoid a recurrence.

While the panel "may work perfectly" south of the border, "it doesn't work for us," Eves said earlier in the day.

In Albany, N.Y., after their afternoon meeting, Eves and Gov. George Pataki expressed concern that communications and other mechanisms that should have cut the spread of the outage failed.

Both men were quick to say the blackout highlighted problems outside their respective borders, although they conceded it was too early to draw conclusions about the cause.

Eves said he would not be visiting Ohio where the blackout is believed to have started because the province doesn't have direct electrical ties to that state.

He also called on the federal government to come up with compensation for losses incurred in Ontario because of the power outage.

However, he was non-committal on what aid the province might offer. Some municipalities and others have already asked for money.

Eves said he had asked for a report and recommendations on aid from his officials in various ministries.

"I thought I would have it by now but I do not have it yet on my desk," he said.

"I'm going to look at what their recommendations are with respect to compensation for all kinds of individuals, not just particularly municipalities."