Utilities Break Laws, People Get Charged More

Ontarians will be facing another electricity hike thanks to the Ontario Energy Board’s recent decision.

The board has ruled in favour of allowing local utilities to raise their rates to cover $18 million in fines and court costs they had to pay for after courts ruled they were charging too high of interest rates on late payments.

EXCUSE ME? A company was charging too much money on interest rates so now they are allowed to raise their initial rates to get back the money they lost for breaking the rules? No way! How can they do that? If a store overcharges a customer and gets caught doing it, they can’t simply raise the cost of their merchandise to recover the cost of having to repay the customer.

With this ruling, utilities are reminding me a lot of insurance, where you pay for other people’s mistakes.

To top it all off, Premier Dalton McGuinty says he won’t tell the OEB what to do or reverse the decision to raise rates. Well thanks Mr. McGuinty for caring so much about your constituents and allowing a necessity of life like heat and hydro cost even more when people in the province are already struggling to pay their bills!

I feel that utilities should not be able to raise rates to compensate for their losses because that would be like not having to face consequences for their wrong-doing.