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Ontario’s Progressive Conservative leader stood in the rain Tuesday and protested at the doorstep of an unlikely Tory villain — a big corporate headquarters.

Surrounded by sign-wielding supporters, Doug Ford condemned Hydro One and the steep salaries paid to bosses and board members of the recently privatized electrical utility.

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It was just his latest take on a recurring campaign theme. Almost daily, Ford invokes the “$6-million man” — Hydro One CEO Mayo Schmidt — and contrasts Schmidt’s annual income to the struggles of ordinary Ontarians and their hefty power bills.

That comparison is certainly stark. But how much do those now-infamous pay cheques really have to do with the mismanagement and scandal that have beset the province’s electricity system under Liberal rule?

Well, actually, almost nothing, say energy experts.

Generating electricity in Ontario costs about $21 billion a year, dwarfing the salaries not only of Hydro One — which distributes the power — but of every top executive in the sector combined, notes Tom Adams, a prominent energy consultant.