Trade talks between Canada and the United States are heating up again. Tariff threats keep showing up in headlines, making investors nervous about companies that depend on cross-border business.
The time is ripe to look for a Canadian stock that barely notices events occurring south of the border. Hydro One (TSX: H) is one such blue-chip Canadian stock I’d buy right now.
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Is Hydro One a good buy today?
Hydro One owns and operates about 99% of Ontario’s high-voltage transmission network, plus a large share of the province’s local power distribution.
A tariff war can squeeze automakers, steelmakers, and other companies that ship goods across the border. Hydro One’s customers are homes and businesses primarily located in Ontario.
CEO David Lebeter made this point clear on the first-quarter 2026 earnings call, held on May 13, 2026. Looking back at his time running the company, he said Hydro One had gotten through “unprecedented challenges, including COVID, extreme weather events, electrification and the trade war by focusing on people, following our strategy and keeping our values front and center.”
That comment is a good summary of the whole investment case. Hydro One has already lived through a trade war, and it barely changed how the business runs.
Here is the part that makes Hydro One easy to understand.
Almost all of its revenue, about 99%, comes from rates set by the Ontario Energy Board, the province’s utility regulator.
Hydro One is also spending heavily to grow that rate base. It now has 15 transmission lines under development or construction, including new projects like the Red Lake line in northwestern Ontario.
Chief Financial and Regulatory Officer Harry Taylor said on the call that this pipeline “positions Hydro One with a strong and visible growth profile through our next regulatory period.”
In the first quarter of 2026, Hydro One earned $0.65 per share, up from $0.60 a year earlier. That is a 9.2% jump in net income attributable to shareholders.
Management is targeting annual earnings per share growth of 6% to 8% for this rate period, using 2022 earnings of $1.61 per share as the starting point.
Analysts tracking the top TSX stock forecast adjusted earnings to expand from $2.23 per share in 2025 to $3.12 per share in 2030. In this period, Hydro One stock is priced at 20 times forward earnings; it could surge less than 10% within the next three years. If we adjust for dividends, cumulative returns should be closer to 15%.
A focus on dividend growth
Hydro One also pays a steady, growing dividend. The board recently declared a payout of $0.35 per share, and management aims to pay out 70% to 80% of net income over time. The payout has grown at a mid-single-digit pace nearly every year since the company’s 2015 stock market debut.
Hydro One has raised its annual payout from $0.84 per share in 2016 to $1.41 per share in 2026. Analysts forecast the dividend to grow to $1.70 per share in 2030.
Over the last 10 years, the Canadian dividend stock has returned 118% to shareholders. If we account for dividends, cumulative returns are closer to 210%.
