Eleanor Clitheroe

Eleanor Ruth Clitheroe (born January 29, 1964 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian cleric and former businesswoman. She was president and CEO of Hydro One, a successor company to Ontario Hydro owned by the Province of Ontario.

Born in Montreal in 1954, Clitheroe earned her LL.B. from the University of Western Ontario (UWO) in 1977. In 1978 she earned her LL.M. from McGill University, and earned her M.B.A. from UWO in 1980's. In 2005, she obtained a M.Div., from Wycliffe College. Clitheroe is a candidate for a Ph.D. in Theology at University of Toronto.

She articled at the Tory, Tory DesLauriers & Binnington law firm in Toronto, and worked for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. She was Ontario's deputy minister of finance under the New Democratic Party of Bob Rae from 1990 to 1993. She was then appointed a vice-president of Ontario Hydro. When it was reorganized into five companies, she was appointed president and CEO of Hydro One, where she received a $2.2 million annual salary.^[1]

From 2000 until 2004 she was chancellor of the University of Western Ontario. In 2005, she was ordained a deacon in the Anglican Church of Canada, and later that year, ordained a priest. She has been the Executive Director of Prison Fellowship Canada, leaving the position in 2013, and Padre to the Governor General Horse Guards. She has been pastor at St. Luke's Anglican Church in Smithville, Ontario since 2008^[2] and was awarded The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Medal. In 2002, she was named Business Woman of the Year by the National Post.^[3]

Clitheroe filed a lawsuit against the utility for her severance and pension compensation after legislation was passed by the Progressive Conservative government.^[4] This lawsuit was dismissed saying of the government, " In short, the Legislature within its jurisdiction can do everything that is not naturally impossible, and is restrained by no rule human or divine….The prohibition "Thou shalt not steal," has no legal force upon the sovereign body. And there would be no necessity for compensation to be given."

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