Hydro and After: The Canadian Experience with the Organization, Nationalization and Deregulation of Electrical Utilities

This paper surveys the process of nationalization and some recent steps towards denationalization in a distinctive Canadian institutional setting, the provincial hydro-electric power utilities. The richest, most industrialized central province, Ontario, established a dynamic publicly owned electric generation and distribution system before World War I. Most other provinces developed variations of the regulatory model to govern private monopolies until the post World War II period when widespread nationalization at the provincial level created a near universal pattern of state owned electric companies. Recently, the process of dismantling state monopolies in this sector has begun in two provinces, one where public ownership was weakest, and the other where the concept of 'provincial hydro' was born