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Well, uh, lots of people, I suspect. Especially people who appreciate how badly run Hydro One has been, and who would hesitate to trust their money to a giant monolithic bureaucracy that would continue to be run by the same people who turned Ontario’s power system into such a mess in the first place.

That’s the kicker in the rumoured sell-off: Ms. Wynne wants to sell off bits of the utility while retaining complete control. I’d like the same deal: I’ll sell you my house if I get to keep living in it and retain control. You take the mortgage, I’ll keep the house. Deal?

If you don’t believe me, how about Dalton McGuinty, Ms. Wynne’s predecessor. Reacting to suggestions the Progressive Conservative government was mulling a sell-off in 2002, he denounced the very idea:.

“Ernie Eves may be poised to sell off Hydro One in a desperate bid to get cash so he can throw money at the electricity crisis he has created,” said McGuinty, who was opposition leader at the time. Selling pieces of Ontario’s electricity grid would only result in further “price gouging,” he insisted.

Mr. McGuinty, who was never one to let principles get in his way, later reversed himself and considered a sell-off of his own once he became premier. In 2009 the Liberals – faced with that huge deficit they’d amassed — considered a plan for a wholesale unloading of government assets, including Ontario Power Generation (which generates the power Hydro One distributes), the LCBO, and the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation.