Seniors living on fixed incomes will be hit hard by the spike in electricity rates announced Tuesday.
Prince George Council of Seniors resource centre manager Lola-Dawn Fennell said the increases over the coming years are scary for those who have trouble making ends meet.
"We've already had seniors over the last couple of winters complaining that they're making hard choices because they can't afford to pay for their heat," she said.
Energy and Mines Minister Bennett acknowledged those on fixed incomes will face greater pressure, but said the BC Hydro is recommitting to PowerSmart programs to help people reduce their consumption.
"In many, many cases - think in the majority of cases - regardless of what our income is, there are always ways to use less electricity," he said. "When rates go up a bit like this, it's probably a signal to some people that maybe we have try a little harder to reduce our electricity usage."
Fennell said cutting consumption is good in theory, but only works well for people who own their own home and who can afford to make the capital investments to reduce usage. She said seniors often don't have the money to make those changes and those living in rental properties may not be allowed to make the upgrades.
BC Hydro president and CEO Charles Reid noted that current electricity rates in B.C. are similar to what they were in the 1970s if inflation is factored in. He also pointed out that residential rates are currently the third lowest in the country behind only Quebec and Manitoba.
"As a per cent of people's family income, electricity rates, it's not the bill typically that people look at the most every month and think, 'oh my gosh there's my electricity bill,' " he said. "It can be high in some cases and it does affect people who are on fixed incomes and so on, but the average residential user their cable bills, their phone bills and all that sort of thing are often much, much higher than their electricity bill is."
NDP provincial council representative Sherry Ogasawara took issue with Reid's remarks.
"I think that people really are concerned about hydro bills," she said, noting finding ways to pay all the bills can be stressful for some. "A CEO of a multimillion dollar company has the luxury of making those types of comments, I don't think that's the sentiment of the average consumer."
The business community will also need to adjust to the new reality. In the first year alone, the average commercial customer will see an increase of about $20 a month, while a large industrial user could have their bill jump by an average of $139,000 a month.
Prince George Chamber of Commerce CEO Christie Ray said the fact that rates are going up isn't a surprise and the infrastructure upgrades are needed, but she said the rate of increase over the next two years is difficult to digest.
"The most frustrating thing in my opinion is the fact that the proposed increases as high as they are and that the largest increase will come so quickly," she said. "April 2014 is right around the corner - for businesses that need that lead time to plan and budget, it will certainly derail some of them."
Large industrial users like pulp mills and mines can be particularly hard hit when rates suddenly jump, but Bennett said his government has been working with those industries to try to get them to reduce consumption. Over the next year, BC Hydro is also working on a new rate design scheme for heavy users.
"There is potential to do harm to some of those big industrial users like the pulp and paper companies, some of the big mines and chemical companies," Bennett said. "We're well aware of the potential impact and frankly we don't want hydro rates to undermine the great potential that you've got in the north or anywhere else in the province."
Bennett doesn't think the increase will put a damper on future projects because electricity rates remain lower in B.C. than surrounding jurisdictions like Alberta or northwest American states.
Closer to home, Ray said the Chamber has its own business energy advisor who can work with local businesses to find ways to reduce the amount of power they use.
The city of Prince George, which begins formal discussion of the 2014 budget tomorrow night, builds energy cost increases into the increases for the general tax levy.
"It's the cost of doing business," said financial planning manager Kris Dalio, who added the staff estimate for those increases using the best information available at the time.
A nine per cent increase to rates might also not be felt quite as keenly in city-owned buildings, he said.
"We're always taking on efficiencies. We have Rod Croome in civic facilities who does a lot of work to make our facilities green and use less energy and try and reduce our costs that way," Dalio said.
The rate hike could have been steeper over the first two years, according to Bennett, if it wasn't for the work of government officials in recent months to find ways to mitigate it. But Ogasawara countered that the Liberals should have been more transparent about the pending increase during the spring election campaign.
"I did not hear the Liberals campaigning to jack up hydro rates," she said. "If I ask anybody, that's not what they heard."
Yet Bennett said his party did make it clear that current rates weren't sustainable.
"Anybody who is surprised that electricity rates had to go up, clearly hasn't been reading your newspaper or paying attention generally," he said. "At no time in the election campaign did anyone ever suggest that hydro rates would never go up."
- With files from Charelle Evelyn
