Council of Canadians Reaches a Conclusion
The Council of Canadians is Canada’s largest citizens’ organization, with members and chapters across the country. The general public has an expectation that an organisation of this calibre will present well thought out and researched opinion on matters of public policy.
Unfortunately I believe that this is not the case in regards to a recent email they sent out to the newspapers regarding the proposed Hydro Merger.
Earlier this week, I had several email conversations with Dave Sills, Co-Chair of the Guelph Chapter on this matter; I really appreciated his observations and frank discussion with me. Given that the issues raised by the Council of Canadians were vigorously explored in the business case I referred him to Art Stokman at Hydro to set up a meeting:
If the Council of Canadians haven’t already done so, you should be aware that your organisation can schedule a meeting with Guelph Hydro to personally discuss all of the concerns you have raised. Your issues have been raised during the various meetings we have had with Hydro and they will be able to address your concerns in detail.
Given the complexity of the issues and the significant impact of this decision the management of Guelph Hydro have maintained an open door policy to meet with the community to answer questions regarding the merger business case.
To date numerous groups have taken Hydro staff up on this offer including, the Guelph Developers Association, the Chamber of Commerce, Friends of Guelph, as well as several independent industry leaders and individuals.
By contrast, the Council of Canadians didn’t bother to seek answers to their concerns about the proposed merger before condemning the idea.
Their shopping list of concerns appears significant, but each of them has been vigorously explored by Hydro in reaching their recommendation. This doesn’t necessarily mean that if the Council of Canadians had sought out answers to their questions that they would have agreed with Hydro`s conclusions – however by reaching a conclusion without asking leaves me wondering that perhaps the Council of Canadians simply didn’t want to hear the answers.
September 19th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Exactly what I thought as well Mike. Bang on!
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:17 pm
The Council of Canadians – Guelph Chapter (CoC-Guelph) has had numerous interactions with proponents of the merger proposal. Several CoC-Guelph members attended the initial presentation by Paul Truex to City Council.
We had many questions at that time. We attended the Public Information Centre at the Ramada Inn and talked to Mr. Stokman and other Guelph Hydro management and staff.
We then invited former Hydro employees to give a presentation at our June CoC-Guelph meeting since energy is a focus of our national organization. That long meeting ended with some answers, but even more questions.
So, we prepared a one page information sheet for the public in order to raise awareness and bring transparency to this issue. We also sent a letter to the editor of the Guelph Mercury to add to the many other letters that were popping up.
At this point, several of our associates committed to researching other amalgamations. After exploration of other systems and the reported effects of consolidations to achieve economies of scale, we discovered that we indeed may not achieve any advantages in amalgamating . It appeared that a merger could be taking on future burdens for our citizenry.
Being concerned, we attended a City Council meeting where the matter was placed before the public again. We openly and publicly stated our concerns about the merger. We shared our concerns following this with Lloyd Longfield of the Chamber of Commerce and with some city councillors. Questions were sent to Guelph Hydro at this time. They were eventually answered but left lingering doubts for us based on our research.
We also worked with Dennis Galon (PhD), Richard Chaloner (LLB), Stephen Rodd (retired planner and economist), and Tim Allman (PhD) on a study that shows that a number of the fundamental assumptions in the merger proposal may be flawed, such as the assumption that a substantial growth in customer base is required to achieve ‘economies of scale’. The authors of this study directed numerous questions to Guelph Hydro, and answers to our questions were incorporated into the analysis.
At no time has Guelph Hydro challenged our facts, directly addressed our major concerns, or approached us for a meeting. We did not see any necessity for a private meeting since we felt this matter should be dealt with openly and publicly. Guelph Hydro has had every opportunity to reply to us in the same way.
We have not been comfortable with the secrecy with which the memorandum of understanding and “business case” have been dealt (a feeling that we believe you share). We were not anxious to enter into any communication of a private or confidential nature. This matter must be as transparent and public as possible. Throughout we have been sensitive to the fact that this is a publicly owned and regulated utility, the property of the citizens of Guelph.
Mike, we’ve done our homework – probably a lot more than should be expected of a volunteer organization – and yet we still feel there are fundamental flaws with the merger proposal that should be brought to the public’s attention. Since it appears you were enlightened after your visit to see Mr. Stokman, why not post a point-by-point response to our concerns instead of attacking our credibility?
September 22nd, 2008 at 8:53 pm
It’s hard to admit when you’ve made a mistake. So let me get straight to the point – I jumped the gun in assuming the Council of Canadians had not done their homework before coming to a conclusion with regards to the Hydro Merger.
Since all of this began I have had several long phone conversations with Dave Sills about the Hydro Merger and come to the conclusion that we are both trying to achieve the same objective; to sort through all of the information and misinformation and make sense of a very complicated and very important issue facing our city.
The Council of Canadians have put forth a remarkable effort to this end and for that I want to say thank-you and I am sorry for implying anything to the contrary.
One of the issues Dave and I have debated is the validity of the CoC meeting directly with Hydro to discuss their concerns. I respect the desire of the CoC to keep the debate in the public and not meet “behind closed doors” however I found the free flowing discussion available in such a context really allowed me to drill down with questions. At the end of the day I am eager to have the CoC questions fully vetted – I NEED to have answers to these questions and opinions even if the answer is that the two groups disagree.
Dave – as I mentioned to you on the phone, I would be more than willing to join your group for a discussion with Hydro. Please let me know if you are interested.