Record oil costs mean tough choices
HALIFAX (CP) – Whenever she can afford it, Tracey takes a jerry can down to a special pump at a local gas station and fills it with what little furnace oil she can afford.
The 36-year-old Cape Breton woman, who doesn’t want her last name published, says $20 of furnace oil will last two or three days – and only if she, her husband and four children keep the heat low and bundle up when they’re inside.
“I only run my oil in the evening, just enough to heat the house up for the night, and in the day you just put extra sweaters on,” Tracey said from her home in the Sydney area, where the temperature hovered around -7 C on Friday.
“We see a lot of people pumping their own oil just to survive,” she adds, referring to a gas station in Sydney that installed a furnace oil pump about three years ago. “That’s what we’re reduced to.”
Anti-poverty advocates say Tracey’s story mirrors many more in Atlantic Canada, as low-income families are forced to choose between heat and food in a region where a higher proportion of homes use furnace oil than in the rest of the country.
For Tracey, whose husband’s disability pension doesn’t even cover rent and food, that means using her federal child tax credit to pay for oil.
“My kids – they don’t get to do normal kid things. They don’t get a lot of clothing, nights to the movies, to be able to do things with their friends, because we have to sacrifice to pay the bills.”
People living on the East Coast are particularly vulnerable to the rising price of furnace oil, which in Atlantic Canada is on par with or slightly higher than the national average of $1.02 per litre. That’s up 50 per cent over the past 10 months, and double what it cost three years ago.
According to Statistics Canada, more than half of all homes in Atlantic Canadian used oil for heat in 2003 – the most recent figures available. The national average is just 12 per cent.
The four provincial governments in Atlantic Canada offer varying levels of help for people in Tracey’s situation, though advocates say those programs don’t provide nearly enough money.
The Nova Scotia government has eliminated the provincial sales tax on heating costs, although the government is currently under fire for scrapping a rebate program for low-income families.
In Newfoundland, homes with incomes below $40,000 can apply for rebates ranging from $100 to $300. New Brunswick cancelled a promise to remove the provincial tax and instead introduced a rebate program that gives $100 to low-income homes.
In Prince Edward Island, the government doesn’t charge provincial sales tax.
Dan Weston of the Fredericton Anti-Poverty Organization said rebate programs that offer amounts as low as $100 are “ridiculous.”
“One would think that heat in a winter country like Canada would be a right,” he said.
“People have to make serious choices – the choices are between food or rent or bills, because the price of oil eats up such a proportion of the daily finances.”
He said provincial governments need to do far more to help people heat their homes. If they don’t, Wilson predicted, governments will soon be footing the bill for shelters to keep families warm when they run out of money.
Non-profit agencies and some churches offer assistance, but they don’t represent a permanent fix.
The Nova Scotia branch of the Salvation Army offers help through its Good Neighbour Program, funded in part by companies including privately owned Nova Scotia Power and Wilsons Fuel, but families typically can’t receive help two years in a row.
A woman in Halifax who has used the Salvation Army and other sources to help pay her heating bills said such programs are just a Band-Aid solution.
“You can’t call them every month or every two weeks – it’s a one-time thing, you’re lucky if you get it once a year,” said the woman, who struggles to support a family of four on social assistance.
“We put in enough (oil in the tank) that will last, but that takes away from other things – food and bills.”
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