B.C. Hydro has introduced a crisis fund to help residential clients pay their bills when they are facing an imminent power shut-off. To qualify, customers must owe less than $1,000, have experienced a temporary financial crisis and have made some efforts to reduce their amount owing.
If these criteria are met, a grant of up to $600 will be offered, renewable on a yearly basis as long as the financial crisis continues. The company believes about 10,000 customers will be eligible.
To build the fund, B.C. Hydro has added a surcharge of 25 cents to each residential customer’s monthly bill. That should raise $5.3 million a year to cover the cost of the grants plus administrative overhead.
Let’s begin by conceding that this is a good-faith effort to address a genuine social issue. No one wants to see a single mother with young children or a senior citizen with mobility difficulties left without power.
In addition, the company says it was asked to create a fund of this sort by the B.C. Utilities Commission. A similar program is offered in Ontario.
But there are serious questions about the advisability of B.C. Hydro taking on this kind of responsibility. For a start, the company has a virtual monopoly on electrical power.
If it wished to launch a program in which customers could choose whether to make a donation, there would be no issue. Many of us happily contribute to food banks and various charities. Did Hydro consider the option of a voluntary program?
Here we have outright coercion, since most of us don’t have the choice of switching to a different supplier.
It’s fair to say, according to many media reports, that a lot of customers are angered by this imposition, and have serious doubts about the wisdom of the program. Some are barely making ends meet. They question the validity of a forced contribution.
Among their concerns are whether B.C. Hydro staff are really equipped to investigate, in depth, the financial circumstances of 10,000 customers.
In the normal course of events, no doubt employees must deal with clients who are behind on their payments. But the company’s website makes clear the enormous amount of data that will be needed to support the grant program.
With respect to income, applicants must disclose details of salaries, bank accounts, pensions, spousal support, interest on investments and so on. On the expenditure side, they are obliged to list food and transportation costs, vehicle expenses, home insurance, mortgage payments, child care — indeed all the necessities of everyday life.
Complex assessments of this sort would normally be made by a social worker, not Hydro employees.
There is also the belief that a bailout of this kind would reduce the incentive to pay power bills on time.
But there is a more fundamental issue. The provincial Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction already offers a crisis supplement for people on income or disability assistance.
The supplement kicks in if a recipient is at risk of being disconnected from essential utilities such as electrical power. There are no monthly or annual limits on the amount that can be paid.
However, there is one important difference. The ministry has a staff of trained social workers who have experience working with low-income clients. Many of these interactions come down to professional judgment — is the applicant gaming the system or is this a case of genuine hardship?
Everything considered, this appears to be a case of mandate creep on the part of B.C. Hydro. With the best of intentions, the company is trying to occupy the territory of a social services ministry.
Management has said this is a three-year pilot project. For many of the company’s customers, that’s three years too many.
