City wants Ottawa's Hydro One customers transferred to Hydro Ottawa

The City of Ottawa has asked Ontario to transfer the 45,000 households that remain under contract with Hydro One after amalgamation to Hydro Ottawa.

Hydro One customers in Ottawa have long complained they pay up to 30-per-cent more than Hydro Ottawa customers, who sometimes live just across the street. Most Hydro One customers live in the city's outlying or rural areas.

Stephen Blais, the councillor for the far east riding of Cumberland, said the transfer is particularly pressing as the province plans to sell off 60 per cent of Hydro One.

"If parts of Hydro One are sold in the market, if a Bay Street bank or a Wall Street equity firm buys up pieces of Hydro One, I think it's going to be very difficult for us to get those customers out and bring fairness to these residents here in the City of Ottawa," Blais said. 

A spokesperson for Ontario's minister of energy, Bob Chiarelli, said all of Ottawa's mayors since amalgamation in 2001 — including Chiarelli himself — have engaged in discussions with Hydro One to acquire its customers within city limits, but could not reach an agreement on the price.

For the past 18 months, Hydro Ottawa was offered binding arbitration, which would have been a "fair and reasonable process to resolve the issue," said spokesperson Jennifer Beaudry.

"This solution would have been fair to all electricity rate payers in Ontario, including those within City of Ottawa boundaries. The current mayor refused this suggested process and to our knowledge this solution was not discussed at council," she told CBC News in an email. 

The City of Ottawa is Hydro Ottawa's only shareholder. The publicly-owned utility has said it will offer fair market value for the remaining Hydro One costumers.