New Governance Structure for the Ontario Energy Board is Now in Place

On October 1, 2020, the Ontario government announced that the Ontario Energy Board’s (OEB) new governance structure is now in place. The new governance structure reflects the changes made previously in Bill 87 (described in a previous post).

The OEB’s new governance structure includes:

• A new Board of Directors, including a new Chair, who will provide “overall guidance and strategic oversight.” As detailed on the OEB website, the Board of Directors is comprised of Richard Dicerni as Chair, along with John Knubley, Gerald Moncrief, Glenn O’Farrell and Marie Oswald. Mr. Discerni previously led the panel that authored the Ontario Energy Board Modernization Review Panel Final Report, which recommended many of the OEB governance changes that have now been implemented (see our earlier post for more discussion).
  
  
• An executive team, led by a new Chief Executive Officer, that is “accountable to the Board of Directors for the efficient and effective management of the operations of the OEB.” The new CEO is Susanna Zagar, who joined the OEB after previous roles in public agencies, including the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, the Ontario Ministry of Infrastructure and the Ontario Ministry of Labour.
  
  
• A team of Commissioners who will perform the adjudicative functions of the OEB, including a Chief Commissioner “who is accountable to the CEO for ensuring the efficiency and timeliness of case management by panels of commissioners.” The Chief Commissioner is Lynne Anderson, who was previously an OEB Board member. The other Commissioners are Robert Dodds, Allison Duff, Emad Elsayed, Michael Janigan and Pankaj Sardana.

Over the coming months, we can expect to see the impact of the OEB’s new governance structure and leadership teams as initiatives like the Responding to Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) Consultation process are resumed.