Talk:Hydro One

This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Canada: Ontario / Toronto Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Canada, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Canada articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CanadaWikipedia:WikiProject CanadaTemplate:WikiProject CanadaCanada-related Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by WikiProject Ontario. This article is supported by WikiProject Toronto (assessed as Low-importance). Energy Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Energy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Energy on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EnergyWikipedia:WikiProject EnergyTemplate:WikiProject Energyenergy Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Why does Ontario Hydro redirect here? Given that Hydro broke up into five separate entities, shouldn't Ontario Hydro be a disambig with links to all five (rather than redirecting to the second-largest company of the five)? --Nucleusboy 12:39, 12 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

I have recreated Ontario Hydro with the history of the company. It has links to the successor companies. Dabbler 14:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

I believe Hydro One is generally the same as Ontario Hydro, the offshoots (ie OPG...etc) were divisions of Ontario Hydro anyways. Someone correct me if i'm wrong. --Aequitas12345 —Preceding comment was added at 19:29, 14 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

You are wrong :-). Legally there was no direct successor to Hydro. In fact OPG is by far the largest the ex Hydro companies (about 14,000 employees), Hydro One has less than half that number. What Hydro One originally kept was the old Ontario Hydro plug logo, since abandoned.

Ontario Hydro was split up according to the various functions so that OPG now operates all the generating stations (except for Bruce Nuclear), Hydro One operates the high voltage distribution system and some local distribution in rural areas and where they bought up local distribution utilities. The IESO operates the System Control Centre, the ESA dos the old Ontario Hydro safety inspections etc. etc. Dabbler 11:38, 2 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

I added a short quote from the Toronto Star to this section (from an opinion piece by Linda McQuaig), because the objections to privatization were only stated as existing, but the positive aspects gave a sizeable quote to someone promoting it (a quote that needs citation, I might add). McQuaig's quote gives a bit more balance to this section. (Pedro Hazard (talk) 16:47, 25 September 2018 (UTC))Reply

Can it be both a private company and a crown corporation, I'm unsure and would like some clarification. I believe the two are mutually exclusive. Private company implies that it is privately held, and not owned by the government. The wording and explanation in the first paragraph is confusing.--UnQuébécois (talk) 16:33, 24 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

It is a private company owned by the government! The company is structured like a shareholder owned company (in anticipation of possible privatization later) but there is currently only one shareholder, the Government of Ontario. A Crown Corporation is a government owned entity which is not structured with shares etc. Dabbler (talk) 00:01, 25 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

According to the wikipedia article on Crown Corporations: "Their legal status varies from being a part of government into stock companies with a state as a regular stockholder.", and the article on Private corporations:"A privately held company ... is a business company owned either by non-governmental organizations or by a relatively small number of shareholders or company members which does not offer or trade its company stock (shares) to the general public on the stock market exchanges..." and as such it is a crown corporation.--UnQuébécois (talk) 00:58, 25 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

By the definitions you suggest it is as I said both. It is a "A privately held company ... is a business company owned either by non-governmental organizations or by a relatively small number of shareholders or company members which does not offer or trade its company stock (shares) to the general public on the stock market exchanges..." where the relatively small number of shareholders is one, the Government of Ontario. There is an EITHER... OR in there, not an AND so the non-governmental part is only part of the definitions. Crown Corporations are normally defined as government owned organizations without stocks or shares. In fact Hydro One is legally "A Corporation established under the Business Corporations Act (Ontario) with a single shareholder, the Government of Ontario". Dabbler (talk) 02:33, 25 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

The two are mutually exclusive, if a company's sole shareholder is the government, then it is a crown corporation. If you read further in the article about private company Private_company#State_ownership_vs._private_ownership it says just that. Also you can reference the Canadian encyclopedia online Crown Corporation, and the legislation of Ontario Crown Agency.--UnQuébécois (talk) 03:26, 25 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

Fair enough, they seem to have changed the definition of Crown Corporation from the one I learned a number of years ago. Dabbler (talk) 13:55, 25 July 2011 (UTC)Reply

I have deleted the conclusion that Hydro One was a crown corporation. This assumption is "original work" as well as incorrect.

The discussion of ten years ago ended with the wrong conclusion. It does no good to refer to the Wikipedia article about crown corporations because Wikipedia is not considered a reliable source. I have checked a couple of the references without finding any support for Hydro One ever having been considered a crown corporation. That is contrary to the intentions at the time.

Hydro One was created as a private corporation having only one shareholder, which was the provincial government. This does NOT make it a crown corporation. Instead of being under direct government control as a Crown corporation, Hydro One was operated independently as a private company. Years later, the company offered shares publicly, something which could not be done if it were a crown corporation. Now, the company has shareholders other than the provincial government although the government is still the largest shareholder.

The same situation exists in 2022 with the British Columbia Ferry Corporation. It is a former provincial Crown corporation, now operating as an independently managed, publicly owned Canadian company. The fact that there is only one share and it is held by the provincial government isn't relevant. It operates at arm's-length, actually more than arm's-length, from the government. While the British Columbia government has influence, they cannot and do not interfere directly. This was highlighted when a business decision was made to obtain new ferries outside Canada rather than building them within the province. Humphrey Tribble (talk) 08:32, 24 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

Is there a Hydro Two? Does HYdro One not have gas and nuclear powered sources? If so, it is not titled correctly. So, what are the totally separate companies called that produce gas and nuclear sourced energy in Ontario? Asking. 192.214.192.58 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 14:13, 25 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

You are confusing this electricity delivery system with Ontario Power Generation. Secondarywaltz (talk) 15:29, 25 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

This article is the subject of an educational assignment at University of Toronto supported by WikiProject Wikipedia and the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the 2012 Q1 term. Further details are available on the course page.

The above message was substituted from {{WAP assignment}} by PrimeBOT (talk) on 16:15, 2 January 2023 (UTC)Reply