In the early 1900s, privately-generated electricity was the booming
technology, and with it, profitable electric railways. Prosperous
London, Ontario manufacturer (also Mayor and Conservative MLA),
Adam Beck nevertheless believed in the benefits of a publicly-owned
electricity grid and argued government-ownership could spread
electric technology well beyond the use of a privileged elite and
could cost people less.Beck's political acumen resulted in the 1906
creation of Ontario Hydro - the world's first publicly-owned
utility. Two years after public power first flowed through the
wires to Berlin, Ontario, he mused aloud that what was really
needed was to link the province's many municipalities through a
series of electrically-powered railways to two core areas: Hamilton
serving the western end of Lake Ontario and the burgeoning hub of
Toronto. It never happened. An antagonistic Premier Ernest Drury
deflected the issue to a Royal Commission, whose avowedly
anti-radial chairman delivered a damning conclusion: the popularity
of automobiles meant Beck's project was not financially feasible.
David Spencer's study of power politics and skulduggery shows how
dark provincial politics could be in the first two decades of the
twentieth century. Perhaps current events demonstrate that hasn't
changed?
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