The title for this session of the Conference is “Regulatory Developments and the Impact on Consumers, Business and the Environment”. For the purposes this paper, I will focus on the operation of the Ontario Energy Board (the “OEB”). The policies of the OEB, and in particular its approach to the setting of rates for the transmission and distribution of electricity and natural gas, have had an impact on those rates paid by consumers.1 Rather than focus on those specific rate impacts, I propose to address issues related to the present and future role of the OEB in the energy sector. The broad questions I propose to address are whether the OEB is now protecting the interests of consumers and whether it can, or will, protect the interests of consumers in the face of the restructuring of the electricity sector and of the challenges facing local distribution electricity distributors (“LDCs”).
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