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In short, the FAO projects that taxpayers come out ahead for at least 13 years.

But those figures from the FAO are themselves speculative and already out of date. Recent data indicate the sale could benefit taxpayers for many years beyond 2028. For example, the FAO optimistically assumes that Hydro One’s net income will increase from $346 million this year to more than $530 million in 2024. Yet, the company’s most recent annual report showed that net income was down by nearly nine per cent in 2017 compared with a year earlier. If the FAO’s forecasts for profit growth turn out to be rose-coloured, taxpayers come out ahead well into the 2030s and beyond, thanks to having sold Hydro One while the selling was good.

By selling Hydro One, Ontario taxpayers, in essence, locked in tomorrow’s future profits today. If those profits never come to fruition — or are lower than the FAO and other critics are forecasting — the province made a profitable choice.

The FAO made another questionable assumption, too. It assumed that the province’s decision to scrap the Debt Retirement Charge (DRC) from non-residential bills nine months early was predominantly due to the sale of Hydro One (the province had already removed the charge from residential bills). As a result, the FAO included $465 million of “lost” DRC money that Ontario was slated to collect over that time period as a “cost” of the Hydro One sale, even though the province didn’t specifically highlight the Hydro One sale as the sole reason for removing the DRC early. Take that cost out of the equation — the province likely would have done it anyways given the angst over soaring hydro bills — and the taxpayers are ahead, or in the black, for nearly an additional two years from the Hydro One sale.