For all the importance attached to the province's Hydro Corporation and its associated energy corporation, you'd think the provincial government would keep the board running at its usual complement of 10.
oddly, that doesn't seem to be the case.
Dean Macdonald packed it in shortly before Christmas to be replaced by John Ottenheimer.
But other than that, the Hydro board is seriously short of bodies. Chris Keilly is the deputy minister of natural resources and is, in effect an ex officio appointment. Besides Ottenheimer and Keilly, the board comprises Edna Turpin, Ken Marshall and Gerry Shortall. There's no indication publicly of how long the Hydro Corp has been short of directors nor is there any clue as to why it is the case.
In 2006, the board consisted of those plus M5 advertising vice president Craig Tucker, MUN associate business dean Tom Clift, Bill Kelly, Ed Martin, and Bill Kelly. The new Hydro Corporation act didn't changed the size of the board; in fact, the Hydro board is currently doing double duty running the energy corp.
A small board made of people with little experience in the energy sector would make it pretty easy for the company to be directed, in effect, by Ed Martin or by Martin and the Premier. That might seem like a good idea to some, but given that the Premier has other things to do, the provincial cabinet should have set the new board up with a full complement and set it to work making the energy corporation grow based on general directions from cabinet.
For all the supposed importance of the energy corporation, it looks like government is running it the same way it ran the business department. And we all know what a success that hasn't been, some four years and three ministers later.
-srbp-