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Ontario’s energy regulator has given Hydro One the conditional go-ahead to build a new high-voltage transmission line that will carry wind and nuclear power from Bruce County to Milton.

The 180-kilometre line is expected to cost about $635 million and will run alongside a high-voltage line already linking the Bruce Power nuclear plant in Kincardine to a switching station in Milton.

The controversial project, expected to affect about 350 property owners along the route, has been touted as the largest expansion of Ontario’s transmission system in the past 20 years.

"I’ve always thought of this as a three-legged stool, and we got one of the legs," said Gary Schneider, project director at Hydro One.

Environmental and citizen groups doggedly protested the proposal, arguing the costs were too high and permanently boosting the existing line with new technologies would be sufficient. Some contended Hydro One wanted the new line to justify expansion of nuclear power.

The Ontario Energy Board disagreed, ruling the project was in the public interest "in regard to its impact on price, reliability and quality of electricity service to consumers." It found economic benefits of the line would exceed its expected cost.

Schneider said the next leg of approvals is an environmental assessment, a draft of which will be released Monday for 30 days of public comment, then revised and formally submitted to the environment ministry in early November.

"We hope that, in early 2009, we get a decision," said Schneider, adding the third leg of approvals involves acquiring the necessary land rights, as the new line will require a 60-metre widening of the existing transmission corridor no fax payday loan. "We’re hoping to start tabling those offers to landowners in October."

Owners who don’t accept the offers, set by a third-party appraiser, will be forced into a land expropriation process. Schneider said he hopes it doesn’t come to that, but added it likely will for some.

The new line likely won’t come into service until 2011.

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NEW YORK–The percentage of Americans who were delinquent on their credit card payments rose slightly in the second quarter from the same time last year, while average debt per borrower jumped 8.6 per cent, according to credit reporting agency TransUnion LLC.

For the quarter ended June 30, 1.04 per cent of credit card holders were delinquent at least 90 days on one or more of their cards. That compares with 0.91 per cent for the second quarter of 2007, although it did represent a decline from 1.19 per cent in the first quarter of 2008.

The decline from the first quarter to the second quarter likely reflected tax refunds and economic stimulus cheques, according to Ezra Becker, principal consultant in TransUnion's financial services group. Becker said delinquency rates tend to be seasonal, "and it does tend to go down in the second quarter."

Banks have been tightening lending standards and credit card limits, which also may have contributed to the quarter-over-quarter decline, he said. "A lot of people who would have gone delinquent in the past are no longer getting new credit cards or those higher limits," Becker said.

The figures are culled from TransUnion Trend Data, which consists of 27 million consumer records randomly sampled each month from the credit reporting agency's national consumer credit database.

Second-quarter delinquency was highest in Nevada, at 1.72 per cent, followed closely by Florida, at 1.34 per cent paydayloans. These two states are among the hardest hit by the housing and mortgage crisis.

The lowest credit card delinquency rates were found in North Dakota, at 0.59 per cent, Vermont, at 0.68 per cent, and Utah, at 0.70 per cent.

Meanwhile, the average debt per borrower for the second quarter stood at $1,717, up 8.9 per cent from $1,581 in the second quarter of 2007. Debt per borrower increased 2.6 per cent from the first quarter, when it stood at $1,673.

Becker said the increases are likely due to the slow economy and the spike in gasoline prices during the quarter.

The highest state average card debt was in Alaska, at $2,494, followed by Tennessee at $2,109 and Alabama at $2,015. Residents of Iowa had the lowest average debt of $1,281, with North Dakota second at $1,318 and South Dakota third, at $1,388.

TransUnion expects the 90-day delinquency rate to fall again in the third quarter, but rebound in the fourth quarter as spending increases toward the holiday season. High gas prices and the addition of heating oil and natural gas costs are expected to contribute as well, Becker said.

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NEW YORK–A group of global banks and securities firms have announced a $70-billion (U.S.) loan program that financial companies can tap to help ease a credit shortage that threatens global financial markets.

The 10 banks, which include JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said Sunday they were committing $7 billion each for the pool.

This acts as a signal to the marketplace that banks, brokerages and other financial companies can lean on the fund to take care of borrowing needs.

The program will be available to participating banks which can get a cash infusion up to a maximum of one-third of the total size of the pool.

The size of the loan program might increase as other banks are permitted to join instant cash advance.

All participating banks intend to use the facility beginning this week.

The banks also include Bank of America Corp., Barclays PLC, Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse Group, Deutsche Bank AG, Merrill Lynch & Co., Morgan Stanley and UBS.

The banks made the announcement to try and head off market disruptions after the possible failure of investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

Lehman was expected to file for bankruptcy by Monday after succumbing to dwindling investor confidence due to losses from its real estate holdings.

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Do a Google search for Bell Blues and my website pops up first. There, you can find hundreds of comments about deteriorating customer service.

Last April, I issued a challenge to Bell: If you’re changing and improving, tell your customers so. And back up the rhetoric with a meaningful guarantee.

"We were just in the early stages of developing something at the time," says Kevin Crull, president of residential services.

This week, Bell announced something concrete to show that standards were being raised.

Customers who have service problems with home phone, Internet or TV – which cannot be corrected from Bell’s offices – can get technicians dispatched to their homes on the same or next day at no extra charge.

Also, customers can pay $59.95 to get next-day installation of home phone, Internet or TV. The fee is the same, no matter how many services are installed.

So, what happens if Bell cannot meet its guaranteed service levels?

Customers move up to the front of the line if Bell’s technicians do not show up as promised, Crull said, and they get refunds of fees paid for express installation.

To me, this guarantee lacks teeth if Bell doesn’t perform as promised.

Dominion’s fresh or free guarantee gave real meaning to its "fresh obsessed" campaign. It started in 2002 and ran until this summer, when the grocery chain was taken over by Metro Inc.

From 1993 to 1997, TD Bank guaranteed it would pay $5 to customers who waited in line for more than five minutes.

Since 2002, most large retailers have signed on to a code requiring them to give products free of charge (up to $10) if the scanned price at checkout is higher than the advertised or displayed price.

I’d like to see Bell offer a guarantee that covers more than service calls and installation.

Here are a few typical complaints I received about Bell in the past month:

Ernest Ackun says he was overbilled by Bell Mobility for long-distance calls and browser charges.

Alison Demchyshyn complains about overbilling on her Bell Sympatico account.

Carlos Augusto was reviewing his parents’ bills and saw they were paying $15.20 a month to rent a Vista phone easy quick payday loans. The rental service was terminated in 1999. Bell offered a refund of fees for only two years.

Margaret Millar signed up for Sympatico service in 2006, but never received a single bill. She called Bell many times to straighten things out and got nowhere. Now her Internet is cut off and she still can’t get hold of anyone.

You can see a common pattern. Bell makes billing mistakes, but customers struggle to reach anyone with enough authority to correct those billing mistakes.

So, wouldn’t a billing guarantee make sense?

How about offering three months’ free service to customers who complain three months in a row about the same problem?

Crull said he’s working on other areas where he can offer promises – such as billing, waiting times at Bell’s call centres and first-time resolution of problems.

He’s already implementing a plan to call customers whose payments are overdue by 30 days and ask if they have a dispute about service or billing.

"I hate it when the first time a customer hears from us is a collection call," he says. “I don’t want to send a person into collections if we haven’t resolved their problem."

While this announcement is a good start, I’m waiting to see a wider array of service promises before I stop singing the Bell blues.

Ellen Roseman’s column appears Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday.

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NEW YORK – Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s rescue plan got a dismal reception from Wall Street today, with shares of the battered bank plunging about 40 per cent.

The stock price unravelled in early trading after analyst reports cast doubt that the nation's fourth-largest investment bank can survive.

Its shares fell $2.91 to US$4.34 – down more than 94 per cent from their 52-week high of $67.73.

Other financial stocks were also pulled lower amid fear that banks and brokerages still have more pain to go before the year-old credit crisis begins to wane. Merrill Lynch & Co. shares fell 11 per cent, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. dropped three per cent, and Washington Mutual Inc. shed 22.9 per cent.

On Wednesday, the 158-year-old investment bank (NYSE: LEH) outlined a blueprint to sell off its well-respected investment management unit and spin off its commercial real estate assets. The strategy is part of a last-ditch effort to rescue the investment bank from bad bets on real estate-related holdings that have already laid low other storied Wall Street firms.

Lehman Chief Executive Dick Fuld, 62, the longest serving CEO on Wall Street, also said the firm would examine all other options – including a sale of the company he joined right out of college.

For investors, the strategy seemed long on hope, short on details and raised questions about timing and execution, analysts said. Investors had hoped to see a solid plan in place to offset almost $6.5 billion of losses during the past two quarters.

"Management did not successfully put to rest the issues that had been pressuring the stock," Goldman Sachs analyst William Tanona wrote in a research report.

The nation's fourth-largest investment bank plans to sell a 55 per cent stake in its investment management division, which includes its prized Neuberger Berman asset management unit credit scores. Lehman said it is in advanced talks with several bidders, but refused to give a timeline about when a deal would take place.

Investors were discouraged that no buyer had been named. Lehman began pitching a deal to private-equity firms two months ago. Analysts believe the sale could fetch about $3 billion.

Further, the firm is also taking a big bet that a spin off of its commercial real estate assets will get a strong market reception in early 2009. The new entity will be called Real Estate Investments Global, and will be run by independent management.

Wall Street remains skittish about financial stocks since a run on Bear Stearns caused the U.S. government to orchestrate its sale to JPMorgan Chase & Co. in March. Lehman, the biggest U.S. underwriter of mortgage-backed securities, was automatically scrutinized.

Global banks have lost more than $300 billion from write-downs since the housing slump evolved into a full-blown credit crunch.

Analysts believe that trying to engineer a reconstruction of Lehman Brothers will be a tough proposition considering the environment. The current financial crisis shows no sign of ending soon, credit conditions remain tight and big acquisitions are rare. Big institutional investors – like state-owned sovereign wealth funds and private-equity firms – aren't as willing to make major investments.

If all else fails, Fuld left open the option of selling the company.

"We remain committed to examining all strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value," Fuld said on a conference call on Wednesday.

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Ford is cutting another 500 jobs at its Oakville assembly plant but wants to avoid layoffs by offering lucrative early retirement packages to employees.

The struggling automaker confirmed yesterday it would eliminate the jobs in the plant’s paint and body shops, which were part of a proposed third shift that has fizzled because of a continuing decline in the key U.S. market.

Ford had planned a third shift earlier this year, delayed it in July and cancelled the idea last month.

As a result, the Canadian Auto Workers union has negotiated a deal with the company that will offer up to $90,000 to eligible senior employees, plus a $35,000 voucher for a new Ford model, to encourage them to retire.

If the retirement incentive does not attract enough interest to prevent layoffs, Ford will offer a special buyout of up to $100,000 for other workers, CAW officials said.

Ford stopped orientation for about 350 new workers in the final-assembly section of the plant in July. They lost their jobs, but the company kept 190 other new workers who had just transferred from Ford’s engine operations in Windsor. Their jobs are now in jeopardy if not enough workers accept the incentives.

"This has been absolutely devastating for those people who sold their houses in Windsor and then bought or leased homes here," said Gary Beck, president of CAW Local 707. "Other workers here have made changes in their lives to work overnight on a third shift. Now they’ll have to change again.

"This has been a public-relations nightmare for the company."

Production of crossover utility vehicles at the Oakville plant has slid because of falling U.S. consumer confidence as credit tightens, the housing market worsens and fuel prices soar.

Statistics from industry journal Ward’s Automotive Reports reveal that output of the Ford Edge model at the Oakville plant has fallen almost 20 per cent to 95,821 in the first eight months of this year from the same 2007 period

But in the latest three months, from June to August, Edge production plunged more than 50 per cent to less than 20,000 vehicles freecreditreport. The plant is the sole source for the Edge, Ford Flex and Lincoln MKX crossover utility vehicles in the world.

Analysts say the Edge, which experienced a strong launch, should be in the prime period of its production cycle.

"If I were Ford, I would be disappointed with those numbers," added Richard Cooper, vice-president of J.D. Power and Associates in Canada, a leading consumer research firm. Output of the luxury MKX model has fallen 25 per cent to 25,313 in the first eight months of the year but almost 50 per cent in the June-August period. The Flex started production in the second quarter and it is unclear yet if it will generate a lot of sales.

Cooper noted the downturn in the U.S. market has hurt a lot other automakers.

Forecasters are predicting the North American market will plunge from about 16 million vehicles to 14.5 million or as low as 14 million this year.

"No one would have predicted that the market would be down so much," said Cooper.

Under the Ford offer, some 650 employees would be eligible for the early retirement plan. Production workers with 30 years’ service, for example, would receive $75,000 and tradespeople $90,000 plus the vehicle vouchers. Employees who are 55 or older with 10 years would receive the same offer.

If the company implemented the buyout program, workers with five to eight years’ service would receive $75,000, while employees with more seniority could get $100,000.

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VIENNA–After hours of wrangling, OPEC on Wednesday agreed to revise its complex output targets and said the move would effectively cut supplies by half a million barrels per day.

Ministers of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) had been widely expected to stick to existing production allocations, which have been in place all year.

But some voiced concern about a growing surplus of oil on the market and prices on Tuesday sank to a five-month low below $102 a barrel, around 30 per cent below a record hit in July above $147.

OPEC President Chakib Khelil said Wednesday's decision amounted to a cut from the group's actual July output.

“I think if you do your own calculation properly, it will be a lowering of production by about 520,000 barrels per day,” Khelil said.

His estimation of how much output will be removed from the market derived from amounts OPEC members were really producing, rather than agreed limits.

OPEC's new production ceiling is 28.8 million bpd, compared with its earlier target of 29.67 million bpd, ministers said.

They seized the opportunity of Indonesia's decision to suspend its membership to the group to adjust targets and give allocations to Angola and Ecuador, which have joined over the past two years.

The producer group's output targets have long been opaque and analysts interpreted the decision as keeping existing allocations intact, while calling for tighter compliance.

“The communique is much as expected,” said Paul Horsnell of Barclays Capital. “However, it also talks of strictly adhering to quotas, when we might have expected the trimming back in coming months to be done more discreetly.”

Others agreed the surprise was that OPEC has made public its intention to remove supply above agreed limits.

“The statement is clear as mud, but really what it says is members should keep to quota, which basically means Saudi Arabia should stop the additional barrels that it has provided over the summer, which was somehow expected,” said Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix. “I would say it's only half of a surprise because they have made a formal announcement.”

OPEC was estimated to be pumping roughly 790,000 bpd above target, the bulk of which came from Saudi Arabia.

The leading exporter announced unilaterally at a specially convened meeting in Jeddah in June that it would pump 9.7 million bpd, around 750,000 bpd above its agreed ceiling.

The kingdom said it was responding to strong consumption and a senior Gulf source said on Tuesday he expected it to continue producing at around 9.7 million bpd if demand held steady.

“The market is fairly well-balanced and we have worked very hard since the June meeting to bring prices to where they are now cash advance. I think we have been very successful,” Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told reporters on arrival in Vienna on Tuesday.

He has yet to comment following OPEC's output decision, which was announced at around 3 a.m. (0100 GMT) on Wednesday morning following a meeting that did not begin until after 10 p.m. on Tuesday because of Ramadan fasting.

Ahead of the conference, most OPEC ministers had seemed broadly happy with the oil price and had indicated there was probably no need for urgent action, although they said there was a risk the market could become oversupplied in the future.

Iran and Venezuela have traditionally taken the most hard-line position.

They have big-spending populist governments and need a high oil price, but had said around $100 a barrel was reasonable as a strengthening U.S. dollar compensated for the negative impact on oil producer earnings of falling oil prices.

The other surprise of the night was that major energy producer Russia, which attends OPEC conferences as an observer, sent a very senior official.

“Broad cooperation with OPEC is one of Russia's priorities,” Interfax news agency quoted influential deputy prime minister Igor Sechin as saying. “OPEC is one of Russia's key partners on the global oil market.”

In the past, Russia has agreed to trim production in line with OPEC output cuts to support prices.

OPEC will further review its production policy at a meeting in Algeria in December.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs took the wraps off a revamped line of iPods on Tuesday and trumpeted a truce with NBC Universal that means the TV network will begin selling programs again on iTunes.

The iPod announcements were largely expected, and investors were less than energized, sending Apple’s shares down $5.36, 3.4 percent, to $152.56 in afternoon trading.

The iPod upgrades Jobs revealed Tuesday in a theater in San Francisco include two slick new Nano models, oval-shaped devices that Jobs said are the thinnest iPods Apple has ever made. A $149 version comes with 8 gigabytes of memory (enough for 2,000 songs); a 16-gigabyte version (which holds 4,000 songs) is $199.

The new models acknowledge the incredible appetite for iPods — Jobs said Apple has sold 160 million iPods since their introduction in 2001. But Apple has to work hard to differentiate them from the iPhone, Apple’s cell phone/iPod/Internet device that threatens to cannibalize some of the demand for iPods.

Jobs also showed off three new versions of the iPod Touch, which is much like an iPhone except that doesn’t make calls. An 8-gigabyte version of the new model will sell for $229; a 16-gigabyte Touch will be $299 and a 32 GB model will be $399.

Apple hopes the 32-gigabyte unit will appeal to people who download a lot of games and other programs, and wouldn’t be able to store them all on an iPhone, which maxes out at 16 gigabytes. Jobs said people have downloaded a "mind-blowing" 100 million applications for iPhones and iPod Touch devices since Apple began offering the programs online two months ago.

In the deal with NBC, the television network is coming back to iTunes, a year after pulling out in a dispute over the prices Apple charges for shows it sells on the online service faxless payday advances. At that time, programming controlled by NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co., made up an estimated 40 percent of the video downloads on iTunes.

At the height of the spat, Apple said NBC had sought more than double the wholesale prices for its shows, which would have resulted in shows selling for $4.99 each. NBC disputed that, and said it wanted only to be able to sell programs at different prices.

But with its muscle in the market for digital downloads, Apple appears to have won the battle. NBC’s programming will sell for the same prices as other TV shows available on iTunes. High-definition shows, a new addition for iTunes, will sell for $2.99 each. Shows in standard definition cost $1.99. Some older shows are available for 99 cents apiece.

Jeff Zucker, NBC Universal’s CEO, said in a statement that the partnership with Apple is "terrific news for everyone who loves television and the ease and convenience of Apple’s iTunes."

Appearing thin but energetic, Jobs kicked off the event by flashing a message on a screen behind him: "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."

Jobs borrowed that line from Mark Twain in reference to obituary preparedness on Jobs that was accidentally posted by Bloomberg News and then retracted. News outlets regularly prepare obituary material on famous people.

Questions about Jobs’ health swirled after he appeared gaunt at a recent Apple event. Apple has since said Jobs, 53, a survivor of pancreatic cancer, suffered from a bug and is better.

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One of the most dangerous jobs on a construction site is inspecting the foundation or pier holes — also known as shafts. In 2004, safety concerns prompted the Missouri Department of Transportation to implement a rule requiring inspections on state highway projects be done without sending a person into the shaft.

To the engineers at one local company, that rule meant an opportunity to introduce technology that they hope will eventually eliminate in-person shaft inspections in all construction projects.

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Maryland Heights-based Geotechnology Inc. uses a camera meant for underwater exploration and observation to inspect shafts. The camera can take full-color video which can be streamed live to a computer on-site or recorded for later viewing. It also have a 360-degree pan, tilt and a zoom lens capable of focusing in on specific areas of the shaft.

All that means a safer work environment, said Phil Jozwiak, vice president for transportation and infrastructure at Geotechnology.

"Sending people down the shaft in such confined space … it’s risky," Jozwiak said. "You have to be in a harness, sometimes you have wear a respiratory device, there may be methane coming out of the hole."

Using a camera and pre-drilling probe holes also save time, Jozwiak said.

There are two ways a shaft is drilled and inspected. The first is when a contractor drills a shaft, it is cleaned out and another pilot hole, several feet deep, is dug at the bottom of the shaft to inspect the rock surface beneath it. If the rock is not strong enough, the shaft is dug deeper till a solid rock surface is found. And finally, someone is harnessed, equipped with safety gear and sent into the shaft to inspect it.

What they are looking for is clay seams or any anomalies in the rock surface that may indicate a weak spot, Jozwiak said.

The other method involves drilling a probe hole about two-inches wide and removing the rock core first cash advance. The core is then examined to determine if the location is strong enough and how deep the shaft needs to be dug, he said.

Then the shaft is drilled, and instead of a person, the camera is lowered into the hole. It is safer, more efficient and time-saving, Jozwiak said.

It’s also handy in situations where a bridge needs to be built over a stream or river. Shafts dug underwater cannot be examined without stopping the water flow and emptying the hole if they have to be inspected in person.

The camera is submersible and can be used as long as the water is not too murky, he said.

It is portable and lightweight and only needs one person to operate. Some of the other cameras in use have to be lowered from a drill rig or a crane or mounted at the rear of a vehicle, said Craig Kaibel, staff engineer for Geotechnology.

But Kaibel also found a few flaws in the system, one of them was stability.

Initially, engineers lowered the camera into the shaft on two cables, he said. But if it was zoomed or tilted rapidly, the camera started rocking back and forth on the cable.

"Looking at a rocking image would make you seasick," Kaibel said. "I took it out once and decided it wasn’t good enough."

It also was difficult to have the camera centered in the shaft to get a clear view of all sides.

Kaibel decided to make a few changes.

He created a light-weight steel frame that can be mounted at the top of a drill shaft and used to lower the camera into the shaft. He also attached a centralizer to the camera which keeps it in the center of the shaft and can be adjusted for a diameter of 12 inches to five feet.

Now when the camera moves, the movement is restricted by the centralizer and the image stays stable, Kaibel said.

The toughest challenge now is to convince more contractors and developers in the private sector to start using the camera as an alternative to sending someone to inspect the shaft, Jozwiak said.

"Everything is going in the direction of greater safety," Jozwiak said. "Some larger projects are already starting to use it. Pit is a matter of getting engineers and owners comfortable with it."

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Electronic Arts Inc (ERTS.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) has delayed until next summer its latest Harry Potter video game, one of its more popular franchises that had been expected to boost earnings and revenue this fiscal year.

Shares of EA fell 3 percent after it said on Monday it postponed the “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” game from November 2008 to coincide with the delayed release of the film of the same name by Warner Bros Pictures.

EA said the title had been expected to generate $120 million in revenue and 13 cents a share in profit in its current fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2009.

The profit represented about 9 percent of the average forecast for the company’s full-year earnings before special items of $1.52 a share, according to analysts surveyed by Reuters Estimates. Analysts forecast full-year revenue of $5.1 billion.

Analysts said that $120 million in revenue implied sales of up to 4 million units of the game, making “Harry Potter” a significant title at EA, whose roster includes hits such as “Madden” football and “Rock Band.”

But Stern Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia said the market may have already factored in some of the potential effect of the delay, since Warner Bros’ announced the movie’s postponement on August 15 no teletrak payday loans. Warner Bros is a unit of Time Warner Inc (TWX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

“I don’t think it will change the revenue and (profit) that they will generate from this title,” he said. “It takes numbers out of this year essentially and put them into next year, so this year goes down slightly,” he said.

Bhatia in August lowered his fiscal year 2009 revenue and profit outlook by $150 million and about 10 cents per share, and raised his 2010 forecast by the same amounts, respectively. He has a “buy” rating on the stock. 

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