Councillor pledges to stop Horizon Utilities merger

Hamilton electricity users will become the centre of a political debate this spring as a city councillor tries to stop the merger of Horizon Utilities with three other companies.

Coun. Sam Merulla will urge his fellow councillors in June to oppose a merger between Horizon, Hydro One Brampton, Enersource Corporation and PowerStream. He'll do that by bringing a motion to oppose the merger to a general issues committee meeting. He'll serve official notice of it at a meeting in May.

If Merulla'smotion passes, itwilleffectively kill a merger since the city is a majority shareholder in Horizon.

That would be for the good of Hamilton ratepayers, Merullasaid. If the merger happens, he fears rates will increase and service will suffer asthe utility slips out of the city's hands.

"Once you lose control, you lose the ability to control the rates," the Ward 4 councillor said. "You lose the ability to maximize potential profits. You basically are at the whim of someone else."

The four utilities announced on Thursday that they aim to form a new utility to serve nearly a million customers in York, Simcoe County, Peel, Hamilton and St. Catharines.

The merger, the group said, would form a large company that could "use its collective resources" to offer fair distribution rates and more efficient service.

Not everyone agrees that a merger would hurt ratepayers. Mayor Fred Eisenberger says the Hamilton Utilities Corporation shareholders group which like the general issues committee,consists of all councillors asked Horizon for a report and recommendation on the merger at a closed-door meeting on March 24.

Eisenberger wants to wait for that report before he decides. Giving any thought to it now is "premature," he said.

Every municipality involved in the four utilities has to agree on the merger, so "we're a long way off" from it being reality, Eisenberger said.

His vote, he said, will depend in part onwhether the merger will mean reasonable electricity rates for Hamiltonians.

Eisenberger deemed the issue important enough last month that he skipped a meeting with Premier Kathleen Wynne sending then-deputy mayor Jason Farr in his place to attend the March 24 meeting.