Hydro One Insanity
Hydro One is one of the largest electricity and transmission systems in North America. Hydro One is owned by the peope of Ontario.
You can download a pdf of Hydro One’s Code of Conduct here. Integrity, excellence and citizenship are the principles Hydro One stands for. If, on the other hand, you are the CEO of Hydro One, duplicity, greed and ego are the principles you apparently stand for.
In our home, we have seen a dramatic increase in the cost of electricity over the past several years. So much so that we have been very careful in our consumption of electricity. And yet our hydro bill is loaded with charges beyond our direct consumption: delivery charges, regulatory charges, debt retirement charges. Our hope is that the company which manages these costs is as motivated as we are to be efficient and effective.
A false hope.
Tom Parkinson is the second Hydro One CEO in a row to lose a job over expense-account controversies.
How on earth can Hydro One justify a three million dollar severance for Tom Parkinson? He violated Hydro One’s Code of Conduct. By his actions and his leadership he promoted a culture where Hydro One employees were free to charge expenses without appropriate controls. In fact, he did the same thing for himself by having his secretary charge his expenses that he subsequently personally approved.
And, apparently with deep regret, and after the Auditor General’s report, the board decided to accept his resignation.
I’m sure the three million dollars will soften the blow for this “outstanding” leader.
Eleanor Clitheroe. Tom Parkinson. Can Hydro One find another leader willing to be fired for millions of dollars?
Submit your resume. Go work for Hydro One. Spend as much as you can. And, once you get caught by the Auditor General, quit for a few million dollars.
If you are interested, you can download the pdf of Auditor’s report on Hydro One here.
Richard I couldn’t agree with you more. I work at Ont. Power Gen. and this is just the tip of the iceburg. This behavior is an accepted norm throughout the entire corporation in every level of management. When they say lead by example they are not kidding. After all Parkinson learned from the best, our executive board at O.P.G.
Richard, I couldn’t disagree with you more. The expenses the politicians and General Auditor speak about were all approved by the Chair before the General Auditor came a looking. Why do you think the severence was paid? He got fed up with the government back stabbing and left and it was without cause remember. The General Auditor was very safe to point out that no wrong doing was found.
Love him or hate him, Parkinson was very vocal about the the Province of Ontario screwing up the electricity system in Ontario. He wanted more rationale thought given to sustainable and reliable investment, production and transmission of electricity while our gutless government continued to wallow in self doubt about what to do.
It was simple hatchet job actually. They (our current useless government) should have been listening to the likes of Parkinson rather than dismissing him as a political headache. This is where the real truth of the matter sits uncovered or better yet, unexposed.
Hydro One has never been in better shape financially since Parkinson took over and the dividends it continues to pay to this gutless government are outstanding.
There will be few, who will ever know what eally took place behind those political doors but I can tell yopu one thing for sure – the wrong person left.
My point was the amount of severance. I read the auditor’s report and there was inappropriate conduct. Whether it was “staged” or not is speculative at best.
Regardless, $3 million is over the top. Obviously the government was prepared to spend a lot of money to get rid of him.