People in Ontario can't afford light and heat

[CaptainCrunch]

This is a tragedy bought on by a completely incompetent government that should have been indicted instead of re-elected.

http://globalnews.ca/news/2796958/ru.../?sf30032601=1

So-called “energy poverty” is getting worse in rural Ontario, a Global News investigation has found, with even small households paying hundreds of dollars a month to keep the lights on.
Officials, residents and experts are all sounding the alarm after electricity rates in the province rose 100 per cent in the past decade.
A range of factors are fueling the increases, including subsidies for clean energy, dealing with aging nuclear plants and maintaining and modernizing the province’s vast transmission and distribution system. But the problem is especially acute in rural Ontario, where steep delivery charges are the norm.

Ontario Progressive Conservative energy critic John Yakabuski said he was recently speaking to a volunteer at a food bank in the Ottawa Valley town of Eganville, who told him that most of the food bank’s new clients were people who had to make a choice between paying their hydro bill and avoiding a disconnection fee, or buying groceries.

Jennifer Shaver is in a similar situation to Knox. She lives in Oxford Station, just outside of Ottawa, and she is on a constant crusade to cut her power consumption.
She shuts off her water heater during the day, hangs out all her laundry and her air conditioner is never turned on. The dishwasher only runs at night.
Despite her strict conservation measures, her monthly bills have been creeping up to more than $300 a month.

However, there is some publicly available data that indicate the problem may be getting worse. In a two-year period (2013-2014) the number of people who applied to the LEAP program for financial help to pay their electricity bill shot up by 20 per cent. The amount of money paid out by the fund also jumped by the same amount.
Officials in a number of rural townships said the number of people seeking help through the Community Homelessness Prevention Initiative is on the rise. Renfrew County, west of Ottawa, doubled the amount of assistance it handed out last year.
Meanwhile, Fay Knox is once again hundreds of dollars behind on her hydro bill. The stress of not knowing when she will be living in the dark is taking its toll.

Pretty disgusting.

[FlamingHomer]

I can't remember what it was when I was in Calgary but isn't $300 fairly typical for electricity per month?

[REDVAN]

Originally Posted by FlamingHomer

I can't remember what it was when I was in Calgary but isn't $300 fairly typical for electricity per month?

Not when you're living like a Luddite... this lady shuts everything off to avoid consumption and still is at 300.

For me to hit 300, it's winter and the lights are on all the time. That's just for electricity!

[CaptainCrunch]

300 would literally be 10x my electric bill right now.

People in Ontario have seen their power bills triple over the last couple of years. A lot of it do to the gas plant scandals, their horrible green energy strategy and just plain gouging by hydro one which the government allows to happen. The smart meter scandal also caused an increase.

And if your spending 300 bucks on electricity in Alberta, you'd have to work really hard at running all of your appliances and leaving all of your lights on.

[Mccree]

We spend 400 per month running a hot tub and a/c and kids that never ever turn lights off.

Edit: that includes gas too

[FlamesAddiction]

Look on the "Sunshine List" and see how much people at OPG make. Even the lowliest maintenance workers make >$115k per year. Many people making well over that. That's a big reason why rates skyrocketed.

http://www.sunshinelist.ca/

[CaptainCrunch]

I think that Ontario also sells their surplus "Green" electricity to the Americans at a loss so the taxpayers subsidize that as well.

The reason why Wynne campaigned so hard for Trudeau during the election was that she went to Harper and demanded a bailout for the province and Harper refused because her government was a complete sh%% show, so she campaigned for the Liberals so the Feds would eventually bail out the province.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I think that Ontario also sells their surplus "Green" electricity to the Americans at a loss so the taxpayers subsidize that as well.

The reason why Wynne campaigned so hard for Trudeau during the election was that she went to Harper and demanded a bailout for the province and Harper refused because her government was a complete sh%% show, so she campaigned for the Liberals so the Feds would eventually bail out the province.

It's true. We sell electricity to the U.S. who pay less for it than Ontario consumers. It is ridiculous.

[CaptainCrunch]

Thanks for the confirmation, I read that its a ludicrous discount.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

300 would literally be 10x my electric bill right now.

You are only paying $30 for electricity? Are you sure that isn't just your usage amount? In Alberta we have line items for everything, and my actual usage is less than half of my power bill.

I also wonder if this should be somebody who should have the free solar panels installed. Cut down on the usage and get a cheque every year.

http://pureenergies.com/ca/free-solar-panels-program/

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by ken0042

You are only paying $30 for electricity? Are you sure that isn't just your usage amount? In Alberta we have line items for everything, and my actual usage is less than half of my power bill.

I also wonder if this should be somebody who should have the free solar panels installed. Cut down on the usage and get a cheque every year.

http://pureenergies.com/ca/free-solar-panels-program/

My electricity bill every month is $41.00, $49 in the winter

[Swarly]

I pay ~$80 a month in electricity, including all the delivery and admin charges. We run computers non stop and don't really focus on toning anything down. That had us at 664kWh for the last bill I checked.

Based on the rates I searched online for Ontario (they have different prices based on usage time) but I saw one bill posted online that had 2000kWh, I have no idea how they get that high, they must have AC, a hot tub, electric water heater and electric heating? For 2000kWh the bill after all fees was ~$500. Doing my simple monkey math I am thinking they pay approx twice what we pay here per kWh after all the extras.

[calgarygeologist]

Isn't it a little difficult to directly compared prices between Ontario and Alberta because they have variable pricing based on demand? If I'm not mistaken they have time-of-day or usage based pricing or whatever it is called where the rate varies hourly based on demand within the system (similar to Uber's surge pricing.) We don't have demand based pricing here.

Also, it is really surprising how many household in Ontario have electric water heaters and electric heat. I think they were fooled into thinking that their electric rates would be cheap with nuclear and hydro power and that those appliances would be best as electric instead of gas.

[starseed]

The company that I work for pays more than $115k for our maintenance personnel. Not because of the union, but because of the labour market. (This is after OT)

[GaiJin]

http://business.financialpost.com/fp...y-isnt-working

Old news.

[CaptainCrunch]

Ontario is just a mess, and really its a great laboratory for all of the buzz word policies that politics talk about in election campaigns and then implement to a generously termed failure.

We're going to create good clean energy jobs. Create 12,000 job based around a clean energy economy, lose 200,000 other jobs.

We're going to give people good cheap clean power. People start eating dog food so they can pay the economy.

etc etc etc

Katherine Wynne really deserved to be boo'd out of the legislature here, she's worse then a lot of third world dictators when it comes to running an economy.

She's the queen of butterfly farts and unicorn dust.

[White Out 403]

Originally Posted by GaiJin

http://business.financialpost.com/fp...y-isnt-working

Old news.

Socialism in its various guises has never worked to the benefit of average, middle-class people

lol. great way to start off an article. stopped reading after that intro. what a load of hokum.

[calgaryblood]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

My electricity bill every month is $41.00, $49 in the winter

Do you live in a condo? That sounds like condo fees if it's the same every month.

$41 a month is extremely cheap.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by calgaryblood

$41 a month is extremely cheap.

No kidding. I've got a 2br house in which we keep the heat low and the lights off as much as possible and aren't big TV watchers...and our bill is an average of $300/month.

And as another poster previously mentioned, roughly half to less than half of that is actual usage. RGMG, actually.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by calgaryblood

Do you live in a condo? That sounds like condo fees if it's the same every month.

$41 a month is extremely cheap.

Nope I do live in an apartment, I pay the utilities including electricity.