Premier Doug Ford has zapped the Hydro One boss he dubbed “the $6 million dollar man” without an expected $10.7 million severance payment and replacing the company’s board of directors. Chief executive officer Mayo Schmidt, whom Ford promised to fire during the June 7 election campaign over his $6.2 million in annual compensation, is taking “retirement” with a $400,000 lump sum, Hydro One said in a statement Wednesday.The payment is in lieu of post-retirement benefits and allowances from the transmission company partially privatized by the previous Liberal government.“I’m happy to say we kept our promise. The CEO and the board of Hydro One, they’re done, they gone,” Ford said in a hastily called news conference outside his second-floor office.“The severance was zero.”The new premier would not say how Schmidt, entitled to $10.7 million in severance if the board is replaced under “change in control provisions,” was persauded to leave the plum job with $400,000.“You’ll have to ask the CEO that, you’re gonna have to ask the board that,” he told reporters.The opposition New Democrats raised concerns about how the agreement was reached in the less than two weeks since Ford took power.“Doug Ford needs to tell people what kind of backroom deal he worked out with Mayo Schmidt to get him to walk away, and if he’s going to replace the board with his own high-priced insiders,” said MPP Peter Tabuns, his party’s energy critic.During the election, Ford promised to use the government’s power to replace the board and get the new members to oust Schmidt, with the premier-to-be using the CEO’s salary as a lightning rod for voters fed up with rising electricity prices under the Liberals.Ford had promised in mid-April that firing the board and replacing Schmidt would be his “first act” in government, although it did not quite work out ...
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