Summary#

Bill 87, Fixing the Hydro Mess Act, 2019, was enacted as Chapter 6 of Ontario’s 2019 statutes. It amends the Electricity Act, 1998, the Ontario Energy Board Act, 1998, the Ontario Fair Hydro Plan Act, 2017 and the Ontario Rebate for Electricity Consumers Act, 2016, and makes a project-specific change to the Crown Forest Sustainability Act, 1994. Its stated goal is to change how some electricity costs are funded and how the Ontario Energy Board is governed.

• The Act lets the province pay certain prescribed electricity procurement costs from money appropriated by the Legislature instead of collecting them through electricity billings. Transmission contract costs must instead be included in rates set by the Ontario Energy Board.
• It replaces the Fair Hydro Plan’s cost-allocation system with required payments by the Crown and Ontario Power Generation Inc. (OPG) to the Fair Hydro Trust. The Fair Hydro Trust cannot take on new funding obligations or be joined by another financing entity under the Act.
• It restructures the Ontario Energy Board: a board of directors handles most administration, while panels of commissioners hear and decide matters. The chief executive officer gains power to make rules and issue codes.
• It changes how electricity rebate amounts and eligible consumers are set: those details are to be set by regulation.
• It exempts Wataynikaneyap Power GP Inc. from specified forest-law provisions for harvesting tied to the Wataynikaneyap Power Transmission Project.

What it means for you#

• Electricity consumers: The Act extinguishes specified consumers’ obligation to pay or repay amounts that formed part of a Fair Hydro Plan “clean energy adjustment.” The Crown and OPG take on payment duties to the Trust instead. The Act does not set a new rebate amount; regulations determine rebate amounts and eligibility.
• Electricity consumers and ratepayers: Transmission procurement costs must be included in rates approved or fixed by the Ontario Energy Board. For certain other procurement contracts, prescribed amounts may be paid from appropriated public money rather than recovered through billings. The Act does not guarantee lower bills.
• Electricity vendors and unit sub-meter providers: The Act protects them from liability for specified clean energy adjustment amounts, including liability for collecting, reporting or remitting those amounts.
• Ontario Energy Board: Its new governance structure separates administrative work from hearings and decisions. The board of directors manages the Board’s business; commissioner panels decide matters. For transmission procurement contracts, the Board must accept the contract amounts and procurement process as valid in certain proceedings, though it can still make other determinations about an application.
• Wataynikaneyap Power GP Inc.: For the named transmission project, certain forest sustainability requirements and related offences and penalties do not apply to its Crown forest harvesting. The exemption can be repealed by proclamation.

Money#

The Act requires payments from the Consolidated Revenue Fund and OPG, but no cost estimate is available in the supplied material.

• The Crown must pay calculated amounts to the Fair Hydro Trust on applicable payment dates. The calculation includes specified debt repayments, financing costs, Trust expenses and taxes, after accounting for other available money.
• OPG must pay the Trust’s specified expenses due on or after January 1, 2019, unless the Crown has already paid them; if so, OPG must reimburse the Crown.
• Regulations set the amounts and eligibility for electricity rebates. No rebate amount or total public cost is stated here.
• Transmission procurement costs must be recovered through electricity transmission rates. No estimate of their effect on rates is provided.

What is unclear#

• The supplied material does not include the regulations that set rebate amounts, eligibility conditions or which procurement contracts qualify for public funding.
• It gives no estimate of Crown payments, OPG expenses, rebate spending or effects on electricity rates.
• Some provisions have different start dates, including provisions that require proclamation. The supplied material does not establish which proclamation-dependent provisions have since taken effect.
• The Act does not set out how the new Ontario Energy Board governance structure will work in every situation; some details are left to regulations and Board by-laws.
• The bill text does not explain how Indigenous communities would be involved in the Wataynikaneyap project’s forest harvesting.

Case for#

• The Fair Hydro Plan change ends specified consumers’ obligation to pay or repay the clean energy adjustment and replaces it with Crown and OPG payment duties. This could be seen as making the province, rather than those consumers, responsible for those amounts.
• Paying some procurement costs from appropriated public money could make those costs more visible in public spending, rather than collecting them through billings.
• Requiring transmission procurement costs to be reflected in rates could provide a defined way to recover those costs.
• Separating administrative work from hearings and decisions could help protect the independence of decisions while clarifying responsibility for Board operations.

Case against#

• Replacing consumer payments with Crown payments shifts costs to public funds. The Act does not state the expected amount or explain how it would affect future budgets.
• The Ontario Energy Board must accept certain transmission contract prices, costs and procurement processes as valid in a specified type of application. That limits review of those matters, even though the Board retains other decision-making powers.
• The Act leaves important rebate and procurement funding details to regulations, so the bill text alone does not show who will qualify for rebates or how much public money will be used.
• The Act bars certain legal proceedings related to the Ontario Energy Board governance changes, including proceedings based on events before the relevant provision took effect. That may limit remedies for people or organizations who believe they were harmed.