The saga of the “Six Million Dollar Man” has spilled over into the Hundred Million Dollar Manhole.That’s how much money has gone down the drain at Hydro One thanks to Doug Ford’s costly campaign stunt, culminating with a botched takeover bid and a $103-million kill fee. Never have Ontarians paid so heavy a price for such cheap sloganeering, with the meter still running on lawyers’ bills.That our fearless, feckless premier could fire the (admittedly overpaid) CEO of Ontario’s electricity transmission utility without financial consequences was always the stuff of television fantasy. When you mix business risk with political recklessness, and personal arrogance with governing incompetence, you are on the hook for what happens.It begins with the costs (and opportunity costs) of sidelining CEO Mayo Schmidt, who surrendered his munificent $6 million annual compensation but walked away with generous stock options at our expense. That’s a massive transfer of wealth for which we received nothing beyond the fleeting satisfaction of issuing a pink slip.Revenge is no remedy for past grievances. Envy is no substitute for strategy.After winning the June 7 election on a promise to decapitate Schmidt for his tin ear, Ford vowed to sideline the entire board of Hydro One. The utility’s directors sensibly offered to resign voluntarily (avoiding the tumult of termination), but the premier’s office opted for paralysis.Ford’s chief of staff, Dean French, severed all lines of communication between both sides, I’m told. Bad enough that it was rendered a lame duck board headed by a doomed CEO, our provincial transmission utility was transformed into a zombie corporation for weeks while the Ford team sat on its hands.By pushing out Schmidt, Ford set off a chain reaction in the U.S. northwest, where regulators were examining Hydro One’s proposed $4.4-billion takeover of regional utility Avista. Written promises that O ...
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