Hydro One and the Ontario government are eyeball-to-eyeball over how much the big-money boys at the top of the utility are going to get in salary and bonuses. So far, Hydro has refused to act on a request from Energy Minister Greg Rickford to cut Hydro’s CEO’s salary and incentives to no more than $1.5 million. Instead, Hydro has maintained that it will stick with a plan to pay as much as $2.8 million for the CEO. But the government has the power to issue a formal, legal directive to the utility on pay. Hydro, like many semi-public utilities and agencies, has once again trotted out the argument that it can only get the best qualified CEO by paying such sums. It is a position to which many taxpayers reply: “Who says?” Canadian Press
