Last week I was watching André Caillé, President of Hydro-Québec, trying to justify asking for a rate increase of 6% for electricity in Quebec. This, after Hydro-Québec made 1.3 billion dollars in profits last year.

He said that the huge profits were due to two things, which could have gone very differently. First, they made 300 million dollars extra because of the extremely cold winter we had. Then, they made another 300 million dollars extra because energy prices in the States, to whom they sell electricity, were high.

“That 1.3 billion dollar profit could easily have been only a 700 million dollar profit”, said the President on LCN.

Both Caillé and the interviewer seemed to realize how stupid that sounded as he was saying it.