After reading the article in the Gazette by Ashley Wadhwani on B.C. Hydro’s new crisis fund to help struggling British Columbians pay their hydro bills I find myself in need of commenting.
For decades Hydro promoted electric home heating as the cleanest and cheapest option available, so most new homes were built with electric heat and hot water, as well as electric cooking stoves and clothes dryers, even fireplaces – all of which can be fuelled by natural gas. Rebates were given to retrofit homes to electric. In cold weather a person my find their hydro bill soaring to unexpected heights, and the same for heat waved if they have home cooling as well if their home as cooling as well. There is not a hydro customer in B.C. paying home for electric heating/cooling who has never experienced an unexpected finance jolting bill outside of those privileged to be part of the upper one per cent. This new fund will help to make sure that such bills do not cause families to have to choose between feeding their families, paying for the roof over their heads or having the lights and heat/cooling staying on.
I applaud Hydro for the compassionate foresight of this crisis fund. I hope to never be in need of applying for it, but I find comfort in knowing that it is there should I have need to. I have known working families who have been forced to move and to rely upon food banks to feed their kids because they could not afford to pay their hydro bills.
I am appalled that there are British Columbians who would deny themselves and their neighbours the ability to have access to this crisis relief. The article gives the levy for this fund at the lavish amount of “roughly 25 cents a month or $3 per year.” A mere pittance. A group insurance policy against loosing power in the midst of a bitter winter or an unforeseen financial crisis due to whatever might have occurred. How petty can people get? Very petty from the reaction of some. When did B.C. become a province of such short-sighted selfish louts? Shame on them. Such a hardship on them to give up one fancy coffee a year to ensure that they or someone they know does not suffer a hardship of crisis proportions due to their essential hydro bill being due and payable.
It may be fashionable in some segments of our population to react badly to any and every increase in any and every cost of living, but that reaction can also show a very ugly side of that mindset. Very Un-Canadian. Very Un-British Columbian. Or at least it used to be.
Phyllis Griffiths
Langford