The Uniform Rate and Rural Electrification Issues in Ontario Politics, 1919–1923

Abstract

SINCE ITS INCEPTION IN •906, the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario (•EPC) has always been close to political and economic controversy provincial, federal, and, on occasion, even international. • Achieving by the •9aos a virtual monopoly over the distribution and generation of hydro-electricity in Canada's most heavily industrialized and populated province, the HEPC has jealously guarded a pre-eminence known by few public institutions in any modern jurisdiction. Indeed, its seldom contested authority to determine the price of hydro-electricity has enabled the Commission to influence almost every aspect of Ontario life. The most comprehensive explanation of why Ontario turned to public ownership for the generation and transmission of electrical energy is that provided by H.V. Nelles in The Politics of Development (Toronto •974). Emanating from a self-interested group of businessmen and manufacturers operating in the cities and towns of southwestern Ontario, the public power movement has been identified by Nelles as having comprised the 'moderately well-to-do, socially prominent bourgeoisie who invariably manned the town councils and the local boards of trade. '• To them, public ownership of the means of hydro-electric distribution would not only prevent discrimination in favour of large users and large centres, but would actually deceniralize the province's manufacturing sector. In particular, they were determined that Toronto should not reap all the benefits of the 'white coal' harvest. This was a legitimate fear since the three privately owned