Montreal Light, Heat and Power
Montreal Light, Heat and Power (MLH & P) was a Canadian electricity company in the province of Québec . After its creation in 1901, it gained a monopoly on gas and electricity in the Montreal area . In 1944 the company was nationalized and merged with Hydro-Québec .
history
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At the end of the 19th century, numerous small companies split up the Canadian energy market. The rapidly advancing industrialization required a consolidation so that the expansion of the electricity supply could be financed at all. In 1900 Rodolphe Forget (owner of the Royal Electric Company ) and Herbert Samuel Holt (owner of the Montreal Gas Company ) began negotiating a merger. One of Holt's conditions was that he would be president of the new company. The merger project, which was bold for the time, met with skepticism in the Montreal business world.
The foundation of the Montreal Light, Heat & Power took place on 28 March 1901, Holt as President and Forget as vice president. The board of directors included prominent business people and politicians, including Montagu Allan , Narcisse Pérodeau and Robert Mackay . The new company also merged two subsidiaries of the Royal Electric Company: the Montreal and St. Lawrence Light and Power Company and the Imperial Electric Light Company .
In the years that followed, MLH & P acquired other companies, thereby gaining a monopoly on energy supply in the Montreal region. Several new run-of-river power plants were built , including Les Cèdres , Rivière-des-Prairies and Beauharnois . In the 1930s, MLH & P acquired the utility companies of several communities that were in financial need. The monopoly allowed the company to set electricity and gas prices practically at will and make big profits.
In the 1930s, violent political resistance arose against the excessive prices and poor service of MLH & P, especially since the province of Québec was particularly hard hit by the global economic crisis and industry was dependent on cheaper energy. The Lapointe Commission set up in 1934 by Prime Minister Louis-Alexandre Taschereau proposed the regulation of the energy market. However, various new supervisory authorities had little influence on the business practices of MLH&P. Finally, in 1944 , the government of Adélard Godbout ordered the nationalization of all electricity and gas works in the Montreal region. This was the hour of birth of Hydro-Québec . The compensation of all shareholders dragged on until 1953.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rodolphe Forget . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ). , accessed September 12, 2011.
- ^ Montreal Light, Heat and Power Company en 1915. In: Vieux-Montréal. City of Montreal and Province of Québec, April 22, 2002, accessed September 12, 2011 (French).
- ↑ a b c Hydro-Québec. In: Company histories. fundinguniverse.com, accessed September 12, 2011 .
- ↑ La marche vers l'étatisation. (No longer available online.) Hydro-Québec, 2011, archived from the original on December 28, 2011 ; Retrieved September 12, 2011 (French). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
