Research finds high municipal water rates a burden on Regina’s poor

With some of the highest municipal water rates in Canada, a University of Regina (U of R) researcher says the city should start thinking about affordability programs for low-income families.

“The international benchmarks tell us we should be in trouble now, because people who are living at the Statistics Canada low-income cut off are already paying more than the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) says they should be paying,” Jim Warren said in an interview Thursday.

An assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Studies at the U of R, Warren’s most recently published research found that out of 93 cities surveyed, 22 cities had rates that exceeded international affordability benchmarks for low-income households, seven of which are located in Alberta and five in Saskatchewan.

Calgary and Regina had the second and third highest prices.

“(I) realized that water rates in Canada have been inflating far in excess of the rate of inflation for the last few decades,” said Warren. “Alarm bells were going off regarding the fact that rates were getting so high now it was affecting affordability for low-income households.”

But he said the Prairies are also well ahead of the rest of the country when it comes to best practices for water utility management, and called Saskatchewan’s water rate-making procedures probably the most sophisticated.

Warren said high rates are not a result of mismanagement, but of the challenges the Prairies face and what it costs to address them.

“We tend to have more significant challenges related to water supply and treatment, especially in the drier parts of the Prairies,” he said.

The quality of the water the city has access to is generally low and far away, so the city incurs extra expenses to treat the water and transport it. It also costs more to secure sources of water in Saskatchewan because deep wells, dams and reservoirs are required to access the water.

Currently, the City of Regina gets its water from the Buffalo Pound Water Treatment Plant, water Warren says is difficult to treat because the reservoir is subject to issues like algae blooms. The plant is currently undergoing upgrades. To help cover the cost of the upgrades, rates to residents have been increased, said the city.

If the city continues to employ best practices, rates will only continue to increase, said Warren, which is why the city needs to explore ways to help low-income households that may be struggling to pay their water bills.

“There’s a number of ways to try to do that,” he said. “One is tiered rate systems.”

A tiered rate system would, for example, set a lower per gallon rate for the first 1,000 to 3,000 gallons of usage. Anything above 3,000 gallons would be charged at a higher rate. It’s a system already in place in a small number of Saskatchewan cities, including Saskatoon. Regina currently does not have any affordability programs for low-income households.

“That’s the sort of thing that a water manager needs to get support from their council (for),” said Warren, but “deciding if you need the lifeline rate may depend on having a better idea of what the affordability issues really are.”

According to a written statement from the City of Regina, Service Regina does field calls from low-income households struggling to pay their water bills and “connects them directly” with the city’s collections team for “one–on-one conversations about their bills.”

When asked if the city would consider any measures to help mitigate rising costs for low-income families, the city said it is currently working on an advanced metering infrastructure project.

“In about four years, when this project is complete, the rate structure will be reviewed, and Council will have the opportunity to consider a variety of options,” said the statement.

Warren’s next stage of research will aim to better gauge how big of an issue water affordability is for residents in cities across Canada, including Regina, research that he hopes will shed light on just how much needs to be done and when to help those struggling to pay their bills.