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.

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?