Author: Audrey Jun

Audrey Jun is the Clicklaw Program Coordinator at Courthouse Libraries BC. She manages Clicklaw, working to connect people across the varied public legal education landscape. Audrey was called to the BC Bar in 2014 and combines backgrounds in law, public legal education, and technology.

Increasing BC Hydro rates drive request for an electricity affordability program for BC’s poor

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BCPIAC represents low and fixed income people of BC in utility regulation matters, and works on strategic anti-poverty and social justice issues in BC courts and tribunals.

By Erin Pritchard
Staff Lawyer, BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre

In September 2015, BC Hydro filed a Rate Design Application (RDA) with the BC Utilities Commission (Commission). This means the Commission, BC Hydro and stakeholders will review rate structures (how BC Hydro charges customers for its services) and terms and conditions of service for residential, business and industrial customers.

In this proceeding, the BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre (BCPIAC) will ask the Commission to implement rate relief, emergency bill assistance, and specific terms and conditions for low income BC Hydro ratepayers.

BC Hydro rates are increasingly unaffordable for low income customers

About 170,000 (10%) of BC Hydro’s residential customers are “low income”, meaning they are living at or below Statistics Canada’s Low Income Cut Off (LICO).  People living in poverty have a hard time paying for essential services such as electricity when their incomes are stagnant. Since electricity is essential to survival, energy bills can only be paid at the expense of competing household necessities, such as food and medicine.

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“Since electricity is essential to survival, energy bills can only be paid at the expense of competing household necessities, such as food and medicine.”

BC Hydro residential electricity rates have increased by 47% in the last 10 years, and are on track to increase by another 10.5% in the next three years. Rates are projected to continue to rise significantly in future years as the government continues to order BC Hydro to build multi-billion dollar projects like the Site C dam without a full public review of those projects by the Commission. While rate caps are currently keeping BC Hydro rates artificially low, project expenditures will eventually be collected from ratepayers.

BC Hydro’s rate increases have far outpaced increases in provincial income and disability assistance rates and the BC general minimum wage over the same time period. Over the last 10 years, BC social assistance rates have only gone up by $100 or less (for a single person) and the BC general minimum wage by $2.45 an hour.

BC Hydro currently offers no rates or terms and conditions that specifically apply to low income customers.  It offers two programs to its low income customers:

  1. Energy Savings Kits that include a few energy saving products which, if fully installed, might save $30 per year, and
  2. In more limited cases, energy efficiency home upgrades through BC Hydro’s Energy Conservation Assistance Program. This program is not available to BC Hydro customers living in apartments.

While such energy efficiency programs are important, they are not a stand-alone response to low income customers’ increasing inability to afford their power bills – they are only one element of what must be a comprehensive low income bill affordability strategy.

What is BCPIAC doing to help?

In the RDA, BCPIAC will ask the Commission to order that BC Hydro:
Read more about how you can help

West Coast LEAF Report says BC can do better on Women’s Rights

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This post introduces a newly added resource in the Reform & Research section of Clicklaw, the public window to legal reform and innovations in BC.

By Kendra Milnelogo_westcoastleaf
Director of Law Reform, West Coast LEAF

After an election campaign in which women’s equality became a rhetorical tool in a divisive attempt to instill fear and xenophobia in voters and control women’s religious choices, Canada has opted for a more hopeful federal government. But where does that leave women in BC?

We know the primary causes of women’s inequality: disproportionate financial insecurity due to unpaid caregiving and wage inequity, and violence, which undermines a woman’s ability to exercise her most basic rights. These are some of the fundamental drivers of women’s well-being and security, in addition to the ability to access assistance to enforce their legal rights. Many of the solutions to these issues fall totally or partially under the responsibility of provincial governments.

With that in mind, West Coast LEAF has released its seventh annual report card on women’s rights in BC. The report card assesses how well the BC government is complying with the obligations set out in the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). CEDAW, often described as an international bill of rights for women, was ratified by Canada in 1981. The focus of the report card is the provincial government, but it provides a useful framework to measure the potential impact of some of the platform promises of Canada’s new federal government. Below are some of the Liberal Party of Canada’s (LPC) campaign promises in areas particularly relevant to women’s equality and some key findings about the BC provincial government’s role and progress in those areas from this year’s CEDAW report card.

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