Minister denies new law amounts to ‘stealth’ privatization for Toronto Hydro - Toronto Star

'There's no change to the ownership model of utilities,' Energy Minister Stephen Lecce said of new legislation affecting Ontario's local hydro utilities.

Stephen Lecce, Minister of Energy and Mines of Ontario, is seen here in an April 17, 2025, file photo.

Energy Minister Stephen Lecce has denied criticism that Ontario’s plan to reform local hydro utilities is a step toward privatization.

“That is not what we’re contemplating today,” Lecce said Friday in Scarborough, responding to questions about the Star’s reporting on the province’s proposed Bill 140, the Building Ontario Faster Act.

“There’s no change to the ownership model of utilities,” Lecce said. “We’re changing the people who sit on the boards.”

The province has argued that new legislation introduced at Queen’s Park last week is needed to strengthen and modernize Ontario’s local hydro utilities — including Toronto Hydro, Alectra and Elixicon in the GTA — based on the recommendations in a recent report by a provincial advisory panel.

Among other things, the new law would require the local distribution companies (LDCs) to appoint boards of directors entirely made up of independent “skills-based” directors, while banning elected officials, municipal employees, or members of any local board from serving as a director.

A municipality will be able to designate a sole “board participant” who can be an elected councillor or municipal employee, but that participant will not have voting rights, the bill says.

Ontario currently has 58 LDCs, 44 of which are municipally-owned, three are owned by First Nations, three are private, and the rest are co-owned by public and private entities. If it passes, the new law would not force municipally-owned LDCs to accept private shareholders.

Toronto Hydro, Alectra and Elixicon, the major publicly-owned LDCs in the GTA, have between three and five elected politicians on their 13-person boards, all of whom would be removed under the proposed reforms.

“Look no further than some of the utility appointments today,” said Lecce. “You tell me, does the current political representation on some of these boards, does it make sense to you as a citizen, as a ratepayer? No experience in electricity, in energy, in the private economy, no experience in the build out.”

At an unrelated news conference Friday, Mayor Olivia Chow said Toronto Hydro belongs to the residents of Toronto and the city should have some governance power to manage it.