‘We don’t know where to turn’
Soaring hydro rates leave residents fearful, angry and frustrated
Laura Birrell and Fran McLaughlin are overcome with fear when they see the mail carrier.
They’re not afraid of the person delivering packages. They’re horrified by what the cost of their next hydro bill might be.
On Wednesday, fear turned to anger.
As the Niagara Falls residents were preparing to sit down with reporters, Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and Niagara Falls NDP MPP Wayne Gates to discuss their skyrocketing hydro bills, Birrell and McLaughlin received their latest slip.
The total: $677. Up from the $372 they paid last month.
“We’ve been able to maintain bills, but now it’s at a point where we don’t know what to do, we don’t know where to turn,” said McLaughlin.
“We work hard to maintain our home because we are proud. We spend all of our time here. We don’t go on vacations. We don’t live an elaborate life. We just live to pay our bills, and to be comfortable.”
Birrell said they have a small, apartment-sized fridge downstairs, which they haven’t used this year.
“We kept it unplugged. We had closed the vents off so the central air would focus more on the main unit where we live. We do our laundry off peak. We’re trying to be responsible.
“This is my childhood home. We’ve entertained selling and moving out of province because the province is just going down the tubes.”
They have a small outdoor pool, which they closed.
We work hard to maintain our home because we are proud. We spend all of our time here. We don’t go on vacations. We don’t live an elaborate life. We just live to pay our bills, and to be comfortable.” Fran McLaughlin
“There isn’t any disposable income for us at this point. We do our best to conserve as much as we can. We try not to run the air conditioning too much, and we have switched our dryer to run on gas instead of hydro, but now even the price of gas is going up,” said Birrell.
“It’s putting a lot of strain on us financially, but also emotionally. We are always stressed about paying the bills.”
Birrell said she went to Gates’ constituency office after receiving the $372 hydro bill. She said Gates, who has been a vocal critic of the provincial government’s handling of the hydro file and who recently invited people to talk to him about their hydro bills, was “fabulous and listened with empathy.”
“I’m just one in I don’t know how many people who are going through the same thing,” said Birrell, adding they don’t have children.
She said she went to Project Share to learn about a program that might be able to offset some of their monthly costs, but didn’t feel it was enough.
Birrell said she then went to Niagara Peninsula Energy for advice.
“Hydro had said, ‘you have an excellent payment history,’ and I said, ‘well, that’s about to change at this rate.’
“So (a hydro employee) said, ‘why don’t we put you on what’s called an Arrears Management Program,’ which would basically take that $372 and over a 10-month period of time, and tack it on to our other bills going forward.
“Ironically enough, the mail lady just left 10 minutes ago, Fran opened up our bill, and we’re looking at a $677 hydro bill now — that’s with the Arrears Management Program.”
Gates said he often hears stories similar to Birrell’s and McLaughlin’s from other constituents who have never been behind on a bill before.
“There’s close to 6,000 people in my riding alone that are behind on their bill,” he said.
“They don’t want to go to Project Share. They don’t want to go to the hydro and talk to the nice lady at the desk that’s saying, ‘well we can try and do a payment plan.’ No, I’ve been able to pay my hydro bill my entire life.’”
Gates said when Birrell came into his office, “we both broke down because she was just so upset that she couldn’t pay her bill.
“In a province as rich as Ontario, this should never happen,” he said.
“It shouldn’t happen to families, shouldn’t happen to young families, shouldn’t happen to seniors.”
He said the Liberal government is not doing enough to take the burden off ratepayers. In fact, said Gates, they are making matters worse by continuing to sell off Hydro One, “which will drive rates even further up.”
Horwath said she, too, has been listening to people like Birrell and McLaughlin, and has put forward solutions to address the immediate needs of Ontarians who are “finding it harder and harder to build a good life in our province.”
She credited the Niagara Falls residents for sharing their story and putting a “face to the struggles that everybody is feeling.”
Horwath said Birrell’s and McLaughlin’s hydro bill has tripled during the past couple of years, but instead of permanently taking the HST off hydro, the government is proposing a temporary rebate that they can’t count on, and refuses to stop the sell off of Hydro One.
Horwath said the NDP had called for the immediate and permanent removal of HST from hydro bills, and continues to push the government to stop its “wrong-headed” sell-off.
“The hydro system in this province has been systematically privatized by consecutive Conservative and Liberal governments,” she said.
“We have a government that is following the same failed path as the government that came before them. When you look at Quebec, and you look at Manitoba — I call them our book-end provinces — they are both charging rates that are less than half of what we’re charging.”
Horwath said the peak rates in Ontario have increased 50 per cent since Kathleen Wynne became premier in 2013.
“People are feeling like we’re hitting a tipping point, like we’re hitting a wall,” she said.
St. Catharines Liberal MPP Jim Bradley could not be reached for comment.
Earlier this week, the government announced it will be giving hydro ratepayers a $2.45 rebate on their bills every month by halting the purchase of $3.8 billion in large renewable-energy projects.
Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault said a new Independent Electricity System Operator report showed the province will have a steady supply for the next decade, so the change makes sense.
Tossing the toonie and change back to consumers adds up when combined with the government’s recent move to slash HST from hydro bills, he said. rspiteri@postmedia.com Twitter: @RaySpiteri — with files from Postmedia Network