Rep: OEB Doc: 12QQG Rev: 0 ONTARIO ENERGY BOARD Volume: 18 (REDACTED) 30 APRIL 2003 BEFORE: R. BETTS PRESIDING MEMBER G. DOMINY MEMBER 1 RP-2002-0133 2 IN THE MATTER OF the Ontario Energy Board Act, 1998, S.O. 1998, c.15 (Schedule B); AND IN THE MATTER OF an Application by Enbridge Gas Distribution Inc. for an Order or Orders approving or fixing just and reasonable rates and other charges for the sale, distribution, transmission and storage of gas commencing October 1, 2002. 3 RP-2002-0133 4 30 APRIL 2003 5 HEARING HELD AT TORONTO, ONTARIO 6 APPEARANCES 7 PAT MORAN Board Counsel COLIN SCHUCH Board Staff TANIA PERSAD Enbridge FRED CASS Enbridge ELIZABETH STEWART Enbridge Inc. et al. ROBERT WARREN CAC MICHAEL JANIGAN VECC VINCE DeROSE VECC DANIELLE YOUNG OPSBA 8 TABLE OF CONTENTS 9 PRELIMINARY MATTERS: [18] [In-camera session commenced at 9:47 a.m.] [44] [In-camera session concluded at 2:03 p.m.] [45] PRELIMINARY MATTERS: [46] 10 EXHIBITS 11 EXHIBIT NO. K.18.1: APPENDICIES B AND C TO THE ACCENTURE PROPOSAL [32] 12 UNDERTAKINGS 13 14 --- Upon commencing at 9:40 a.m. 15 MR. BETTS: Thank you, everybody. Please be seated. 16 Welcome back, everybody, as we begin our eighteenth day of this proceeding. We finished our day yesterday dealing in camera with issues surrounding the production of evidence that came out of a motion -- decision and order by the Board regarding a motion to produce evidence. We will be continuing with that this morning. So very shortly we will enter an in-camera session again, and I expect that it will take the largest part of the day. 17 Before we do that, I would invite any preliminary matters. Mr. Cass. 18 PRELIMINARY MATTERS: 19 MR. CASS: Yes, Mr. Chair. Thank you. At the end of the day yesterday as alluded to with the Board, we handed around the response to certain undertakings, and I assume that the Board received its copy of that package. There was a covering letter on the top of the package that identified the undertakings that were answered in the attachments. 20 MR. BETTS: I might need another copy of that. We might officially enter that. I did receive a copy, by the way, but it's somewhere up here. That hasn't been entered officially yet as an exhibit, I believe. 21 MR. MORAN: These are just responses to undertakings, Mr. Chair, so they already have numbers. 22 MR. BETTS: Thank you. 23 Thank you, Mr. Cass. Anything else? 24 MR. CASS: Yes, sir. I understand that Ms. Persad has a filing for the Board as well. 25 MR. BETTS: Okay. Ms. Persad. 26 MS. PERSAD: Yes, Mr. Chairman, thank you. It's a leftover from yesterday from the WAMS panel, and it was regarding the Accenture proposal. We stated that we would be filing, on the public record, appendices B and C from the Accenture proposal. I don't believe we got an exhibit number for that, but I did bring copies this morning for everyone and for the Board. If I could just hand those out now. 27 MR. BETTS: Thank you, Ms. Persad. 28 MS. PERSAD: Mr. Chairman, for other parties I'll just leave them at the back of the room. I believe most parties already in the room have copies. 29 MR. BETTS: Thank you. And I believe there's no exhibit number at this point. 30 MR. MORAN: That's correct, Mr. Chair. That would become Exhibit K.18.1. 31 MR. BETTS: Thank you. 32 EXHIBIT NO. K.18.1: APPENDICIES B AND C TO THE ACCENTURE PROPOSAL 33 MR. BETTS: Thank you. Anything else? 34 MR. CASS: That's all for the applicant at this point, Mr. Chair. Thank you. 35 MR. BETTS: Thank you. 36 Any other preliminary matters? 37 MR. MORAN: Yes, Mr. Chair. Yesterday you indicated that -- sorry, Ms. Persad indicated that Accenture wanted to participate directly in the issue of the production of the Accenture agreement, and that they didn't have counsel available to do that. I'm not sure what the status is at this point. 38 MS. PERSAD: I can give an update, but unfortunately I don't have full information yet. 39 I was -- we were speaking with Mr. Roules from Accenture and he's trying to get a counsel to represent Accenture on this issue to come to appear before the Board either today or tomorrow. The problem was that counsel we had -- he had been dealing with internally was out of the office until Thursday, so he's trying to get someone to come today or tomorrow. And I will hopefully know soon whether that can occur. 40 MR. BETTS: Thank you. And from the Board's point of view, we would like to have this, along with the other matters, dealt with prior to our break. So it would kind of set tomorrow as the deadline, if we can receive the submissions at that time. 41 MS. PERSAD: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I've passed that message along to Accenture. 42 MR. BETTS: Thank you. And we appreciate you being the middle person in this case. 43 Any other preliminary matters? Then we will, very shortly, enter in-camera discussions, or continue with the request for a ruling. The doors now have been duly marked as being an in-camera session. I would appreciate the assistance, and I know Ms. Hare helped us yesterday by kind of keeping an eye on the door, but I would appreciate the assistance of any of the parties directly involved with this to keep an eye on the door. And if parties inadvertently enter that have not signed an undertaking, perhaps, they could intervene and assist the Board in clearing those matters up. We certainly did appreciate your help yesterday, Ms. Hare, with a couple of those situations. So with that we will now enter an in-camera session, and it will be closed to the public, and I will now push the off-air button. 44 [In-camera session commenced at 9:47 a.m.] 45 [In-camera session concluded at 2:03 p.m.] 46 PRELIMINARY MATTERS: 47 MR. BETTS: Thank you. We are now in open session, again dealing with public issues. And we have concluded at this point the confidential submissions requiring additional -- requesting a Board order to require additional evidence to be provided by the producing parties. That matter will be considered tomorrow, following the discussions or submissions on the second portion of the evidentiary production issue which involves Accenture, CWLP, and CW Inc., and we will try to deal with those -- with the answers to all of those questions by the end of the day Thursday. 48 Before we get to a couple of statements that the Board would like to make, just in terms of housekeeping, I'd ask, are there any preliminary matters at this point for the public record? 49 MR. CASS: I have one matter in front of me, Mr. Chair. 50 MR. BETTS: Mr. Cass. 51 MR. CASS: The Board had asked, I lost track of the days, I'm thinking it was yesterday but this week about a status report on undertakings given during the hearing, and that's the document I have in my hand. It can be passed around. It may require a small amount of explanation. 52 MR. BETTS: Thank you. 53 MR. CASS: Also, I could be wrong on this, I thought that you may have said something, Mr. Chairman, about a time estimate for the relatively few number that are outstanding. I'm not sure; I could be wrong on that. 54 MR. BETTS: No, I did say that. 55 MR. CASS: I don't see that on this document now that I'm looking at the document, so it may not be complete in that sense. 56 Now, that you have it in front of you, the document lists undertaking responses that have been filed with the word "filed". Where that word is used, it means we don't, at this point, know specifically the date they were filed. Then in other cases there are dates provided, and that's where we do know specifically the date they were provided. And then there are a few blanks, I think six, and the blanks are the ones that have not been answered, and at this point it doesn't have the time estimate, but we can work on the document and assert that as well. 57 MR. BETTS: Thank you. This will be helpful. I would ask you to endeavour to establish an expected date of delivery on those six or seven items. For some reason, I think in our mind, there were more outstanding. I'm pleased to see that list. 58 I'll ask for some procedural guidance here. Is it necessary to include this as an exhibit from anybody's perspective? Mr. Moran? 59 MR. MORAN: Mr. Chair, I don't think any of the issues in the hearing turn on it. But if you want to mark it just for identification purposes, it's not a problem. 60 MR. BETTS: Perhaps we'll delay that and wait until it comes back with the -- completed with the dates, and then we will include it as an exhibit then. Thank you for doing that. 61 Are there any other items? 62 MR. CASS: Now, I'm not sure whether Ms. Persad had anything to address on WAMS or not. 63 MR. BETTS: Ms. Persad. 64 MS. PERSAD: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I wasn't sure if Mr. Moran was going to discuss this with you directly. But I have had a chance to speak to the counsel that Accenture has now retained in respect of the WAMS issue, and that will, again, be Mr. Howe. So he is going to speak to that issue and he'll be prepared to do so tomorrow. So we could either -- actually, the better, I think, schedule for him because he won't be able to speak with his client until 8:00 tomorrow morning, would be to address that issue directly following the submissions on the customer care portion of the disclosure motion. 65 MR. BETTS: Is there any submission from any parties on that request? That seems very appropriate. And again thank you once again for communicating that to the Board on their behalf. So we will plan things on that basis, that we'll deal with that matter following the review of CWLP. 66 MS. PERSAD: Thank you. 67 MR. BETTS: Any other preliminary matters? 68 Mr. Janigan. 69 MR. JANIGAN: I regret to say I will be unable to attend tomorrow, but I will leave VECC's brief on the issue of the WAMS agreement, and in the event we're unable to settle the CWLP matter, with one of my fellow counsel here. 70 MR. BETTS: Thank you very much. 71 MR. WARREN: Neither of whom will perform a strip-tease. 72 MR. BETTS: The Board won't comment on that. 73 MR. WARREN: It's too gross an idea, I know. 74 MR. BETTS: I will ask at this point, though, for your indulgence. It may, in fact, cause you some second thoughts, Mr. Janigan. 75 Just in terms of what we want to do for tomorrow, there has been -- there has been circulated, I believe, maybe not to all parties, but a draft procedure for confidential filings, and it relates to things that we talked about already, but it indicates a proposed schedule to handle the next step in the filing, the official filing of evidence. I'm going to read it into the record so that -- and what I'll be looking for is submissions on this tomorrow, any comments from any parties as to whether they have problems with it, basically, or whether it can be adopted. 76 And the proposed procedures for confidential filings would be as follows: 77 Proposed procedure for addressing confidentiality request for documents produced as a result of the Board's order: 78 By May 6th, 2003, the moving parties, as defined in the order, shall advise the producing parties and the Board copy of all parties -- copy to all parties, I'm sorry -- as to which of the produced documents the moving parties intend to rely on for cross-examination. 79 By May 9th, 2003, the producing parties shall serve and file submissions on which parts of those documents they wish to request confidentiality, along with the reasons for making the request. The request for confidentiality must be made on the basis of the principle that, to the maximum extent possible, the documents will form part of the public record. 80 By May 14, 2003, the moving parties shall serve and file any submissions they may wish to make in response to the request for confidentiality. 81 Finally, by May 16th, 2003, the producing parties shall serve and file any reply submissions they may wish to make. 82 I don't need any comments on that at this point, but I will be asking for that tomorrow, and hopefully so that we can establish for everyone's purposes what the time frame will be in dealing with those matters. 83 Excuse me for one moment. 84 [The Board confers] 85 MR. BETTS: Thank you for that indulgence. The other item I wanted to -- first of all, are there any questions about that at this point? We can certainly discuss it more thoroughly tomorrow. 86 The other item is a matter that was brought to my attention regarding parties wishing to have access to electronic versions of the transcripts, and it's something that the Board has been able, proudly, to provide up to this point. But we certainly are -- we have a complicated situation in that we're now dealing with two versions, or potentially two versions of the transcript. 87 Quite frankly, our Board is wrestling with this. We have not had quite so much confidential management, or management of confidential information up until this time. At this point I don't have an answer with you. I will consult with the Board secretary to find out what we can do, and if it is possible to have two separate access points for the parties that have signed the undertaking so that they can have one version versus what is available to the public, I'll try and let you know tomorrow what the result of that is. 88 I wonder if there's anything else, Mr. Moran, that I should be outlining at this point? I believe that's it. 89 MR. MORAN: I think that's it, sir. 90 MR. BETTS: And thank you for helping me with some of that procedural material. 91 I think with that we're ready to conclude today's hearing, and we look forward to continuing tomorrow morning at 9:30. Some of you may not be here. Those that are, we'll see you in the morning. We will stand adjourned at this point. 92 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2:15 p.m.