Catch up: 100,000 faulty Hydro One bills and other stories you may have missed today

Busy day? Here are five stories popular with Globe readers to help you catch up.

Hydro One issued faulty bills to more than 100,000 customers, then mishandled the problem and tried to cover it up, Adrian Morrow reports.

That’s according to an investigation by Ombudsman André Marin, which found numerous cases of overbilling by the electricity agency. These included a senior citizen in Timmins who had $10,000 pulled from his bank account without warning, and a ski resort that received a bill for $37-million.

What’s more, Hydro One “deliberately kept the situation under wraps,” Marin said.

In many cases, the Ombudsman’s office had to intervene to make Hydro One fix these problems because the agency failed to deal with complaints from customers. These interventions, Marin said, show why it is important for his office to have oversight of Hydro One.

But while Hydro One has since fixed its billing system and ‎implemented other recommendations from the Ombudsman, Premier Kathleen Wynne is planning to take away the power of seven independent watchdogs, including Marin, to investigate Hydro One. That means customers will lose their right to complain to Marin when they have problems in the future.

Many Canadians simply don’t know NDP leader Thomas Mulcair.

That’s according to findings from an internal party survey that, although conducted more than two years after he became Leader of the Official Opposition, confirmed the “gut feeling” of many New Democrats: A high-profile figure in his political base of Quebec, Mr. Mulcair was an “unknown factor” in the rest of the country.

With less than one year to go before the next election, Daniel Leblanc reports, the findings have prompted a drastic strategy change for Mulcair.

These include:

• Public appearances: Mulcair is increasingly going out of his comfort zone in Parliament and into main-street Canada, such as a microbrewery in southern Ontario last week, to highlight his middle-class roots and hammer away at the highlights of the NDP’s platform.
  
• Reshaping his office: In January, Mulcair brought in a new chief of staff, lawyer Alain Gaul, and brought back a veteran of the 2011 Orange Wave, Brad Lavigne, as a special adviser.
  
• On the campaign trail: Mulcair has drastically increased the number of days he spends on the road, and outside of the House of Commons, focusing especially on British Columbia and Ontario, with a heavy GTA focus. In addition, the NDP has organized a series of rallies with the leader from Victoria to Montreal that have drawn hundreds of supporters.
  

The Ontario government introduced back-to-work legislation on Monday afternoon to force striking high-school teachers at three boards back into the classroom.

It means that the 70,000 affected students in Durham, Sudbury and Peel regions could be back in the classroom later this week, Jane Taber and Selena Ross report.

The NDP is not giving unanimous consent to the government’s legislation so the earliest the bill could pass is Thursday, according to party leader Andrea Horwath.

The Progressive Conservatives are supporting the Liberal government’s Protecting the School Year Act.

The decision to force the teachers back to work came as a result of a ruling by the Education Relations Commission that the students’ school year was in jeopardy.

The strike in Durham has been going on the longest – it is now entering its sixth week and there are concerns about how that will affect Grade 12 students next year at university or college. Students in Sudbury have been off for 20 days and students in Peel have missed 15 days.

The high-school teachers’ union said it is “extremely disappointed” to hear of the legislation.

Mental illness affects one in five Canadians and costs us nearly $50-billion a year. So why then, Erin Anderssen asks, aren’t we treating it like any other health-care crisis?

Research has found that psychotherapy is as effective as medication – and in some cases works better. It also often does a better job of preventing or forestalling relapse, and reducing doctor’s appointments and emergency-room visits.

Treatment for all - How it could be done:

• The Netherlands: Primary-care psychologists provide up to eight sessions of publicly funded therapy a year.
  
• Norway: Private-practice psychologists are contracted with the state to provide publicly funded care as part of their caseload, either full- or part-time.
  
• Denmark: A portion of the cost of private psychologists is covered by the state.
  
• Germany: Publicly funded therapy has been the standard for decades. Germans who are not covered through a private employee plan must pay into the public plan, with a sliding scale based on income.
  
• Britain: Trained thousands of university graduates to become therapists in its new public program, after research showing that, as long they have the proper skills, people don’t need PhDs to be effective therapists
  
• Australia: Created a pay-for-service system, also makes wide use of online support to cost-effectively reach remote communities.
  

In Canada, the case for expanding publicly funded access to therapy is gaining traction:

• Quebec: The health commissioner of Quebec recommended therapy be covered by the province back in 2012; it is now being studied by Quebec’s science-based health body
  
• Manitoba: The Liberal Party has made the public funding of psychologists one of its campaign platforms for the province’s spring 2016 election.
  
• Saskatchewan: The government commissioned, and has since endorsed, a mental-health action plan that includes providing online therapy
  

This is part of a series on improving mental health research, diagnosis and treatment. Join the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #OpenMinds

Young adults should invest in the stock market and avoid home ownership until their mid- to late-30s.

That’s according to a veteran Bay Street entrepreneur who says young keeners who buy homes are building less wealth and tying themselves down at a time when flexibility is a real asset, Rob Carrick reports.

Joe Canavan, an investor in several new financial industry start-ups, says that while houses have one big advantage over stocks - you can sell your home tax-free if it’s your main residence - the responsibility of owning a home doesn’t mesh with the lifestyle of the young adult who wants to work hard and build a career.

Canavan’s plan:

• Graduate in your early 20s and find a place to rent in the city where you work.
  
• Be close to public transportation so you have the option of not owning a car.
  
• With every paycheque, invest what’s left over after you cover necessities in an investment account.
  
• “If the money is constantly going into your investment account, it’s constantly working for you and you’re less likely to blow it on frivolous things.”
  

The average national house price rose about 5.8 per cent annually on average over the past 30 years. While that’s a positive sign, the Canadian stock market averaged 9 per cent annually over that period with dividends included.

Follow Kat Sieniuc on Twitter: @katsieniuc