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Maurice Strong, Eleanor Clitheroe, Ontario Hydro

Chairman Mo resurfaces to blow horn

By Judi McLeod

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Why are we not surprised that among the few times the elusive Maurice Strong raised his head after his alleged ties to the United Nations Oil-For-Food scandal became public, it was to rush to the defense of his one-time protege Eleanor Clitheroe?

Clitheroe, the former CEO of Hydro One, who spent $300,000 on limousine rides for her children's nanny, holds top spot in Canada's rogues' gallery of rip-offs from the public purse.

Hired to run the controversial privatization of the utility, Clitheroe was making some $2.2 million a year when Ontario taxpayers were paying $300,000 for Nanny's limo rides, and tens of thousands more to indulge Clitheroe's passion in the world of sailing among assorted VIP club memberships.

Pink slipped four years ago, the high maintenance CEO dominated the news.

Before leaving office, former Ontario Premier Ernie Eves enacted legislation preventing Clitheroe from suing the government. But courts ruled she could sue Hydro One. In this never ending saga, Clitheroe's lawyer is going after her former employer for millions in severance and pension compensation and a $5-million libel and slander suit has been launched against Hydro One brass for the things said about their CEO at the time of her 2002 dismissal.

"I was the one who lured Clitheroe into Ontario Hydro," Strong recalled in an article published in Canadian Business (October 9-22). "I was looking for the best, and I had to convince her. I did it because I had gained immense regard for her while she was in government. (a government contract subsequently led Clitheroe to Ontario's Ministry of Finance, where she became deputy minister.) I can't believe any of what's been said. She does not have corruption in her bones."

This from the same guy who would entreat us that Kofi and Kojo are on the up and up.

Strong, who seems to have the proverbial finger in every pie, insists that Clitheroe was ill-served both by the Hydro One directors who set her compensation and by the ones who like (Bob) Rae, sat on the interim board that sent her packing.

Strong, who Rae says was a frequent guest in his home when he was growing up, refuses to believe that Rae had anything to do with booting his protege from her Hydro One Post. The former Premier of Ontario now in the Liberal leadership race to replace Strong's close friend former Prime Minister Paul Martin called Strong, "Uncle Mo" when he was growing up.

There is no doubt that "Uncle Mo", who dropped off the international radar screen after Oil-for-Food allegations, gets around.

It was then Premier Bob Rae who appointed his old family friend as chairman of the original Ontario Hydro, where Strong was soon looking to Clitheroe to help him save a sinking ship as Hydro's CFO.

"When I was in charge," Strong told Canadian Business, "I took a dollar salary to be in a better position to make tough-minded cost cuts. So I think quickly moving to extravagant pay, at least by public-sector standards, while the system was still in trouble (and government-owned), was wrong."

"But that, Strong added, was a board decision by Hydro One, which reported compensation levels to the government. and it doesn't change the fact that Clitheroe was a model senior executive. "When I came to Hydro, rates were going through the roof and it had just lost three-and-a-half-billion dollars," Strong recalls. "When I left a little over three years later, we turned in the biggest profit in our history and rates were level--something the Conservatives took credit for. We didn't solve all the problems, but we bought time. Eleanor was very involved--vital--in fact--in all that. I saw her as future CEO of the whole thing."

While Strong boasts about his one-dollar salary, he neglects to mention the fact that he used millions of Hydro dollars to sink into a Costa Rican rainforest.

These days Clitheroe, known as "Reverend Ellie", is an anglican priest who calls student housing home. Rae, who almost sank Ontario as its first (and only) socialist premier is hoping to replace Paul Martin as leader of the scandal-plagued Canadian Liberal Party.

and Chairman Mo? He's throwing brickbats at the US from the safety of faraway China, a country he says will soon be the world's next superpower.

american Congress types, who have stated they would like to question him further on Oil-For-Food allegations, are under the impression that Strong is permanently aWOL.

Meanwhile, the elusive Chairman Mo can't be all that difficult to track down. Otherwise, we wouldn't be reading about his public utility conquests in Canadian Business magazine.

Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


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