So, it’s the weekend. You’ve worked hard all week, and for the most part, managed to behave yourself. It’s time for a reward, a break from cooking, a moment of indulgence. You call up your favourite pizza shop, to discover that they have a special on, an extra-large pie with 4 toppings, and a 2L Pepsi, for just $19.99, plus $4 for delivery! You’re all over it!
Somehow, you manage not to perish for 45 minutes, and the doorbell rings – it’s the pizza man! The dog is yapping, the children scurrying to the door. You grab your wallet.
“Hi, how much is the total?” You ask, contemplating a modest tip.
“That will be $32.75, not including tip, ma’am,” he tells you, with a blank expression.
“There must be some kind of mistake. I ordered the $19.99 special. With delivery, that should be around $25 with taxes. Can I see the receipt?”
“Sure”.
He hands you a slip of paper, which reads:
$19.99 – pizza special
$4.00 – delivery charge
$1.20 – syndicate fee
$0.75 – service call
$0.80 – debt retirement
$0.50 – vehicle depreciation
$0.65 – environmental fee
$1.09 – fuel surcharge
$3.77 – HST
———————————
Total – $32.75
“Syndicate fee? What the hell is that?” You ask, starting to lose your cool.
“That’s the governing body that oversees the pizza industry, making sure supplies of ingredients are available, and monitoring the industry as a whole. All pizza shops in Ontario now belong to the syndicate.”
“And all these other charges? What are they for?”
“Well, the service call is for the dispatcher service we have. The debt retirement is to pay off a loan my boss took out on a new pizza oven, the vehicle depreciation is to compensate me for using my own car, the environmental fee is for the cardboard box the pizza came in, and the fuel surcharge is to cover my gas costs.”
“I see,” you reply, now seething. “So, $3.77 HST on a twenty dollar pizza?”
“Oh, the taxes get applied to the final total. Got to pay the taxes on everything, you know!”
You begrudgingly hand over the total, minus tip. “This must be some special kind of pizza for that price. Let’s have a look.”
So, you open the box, to find a piece of pizza missing.
“What the hell is this?” You ask.
“Oh yes, some of the product is lost in transit to your home. Nothing to worry about. That is a standard practice in this industry. You have a nice day, ma’am!”
*****
If this was the kind of experience you had when ordering a pizza, would you continue to do it? Would you contemplate making your own at home? Switching to Chinese food? Doing without? Would you grab a pitchfork and a torch, and go rioting into the streets, demanding justice? Or would you just quietly carry on, and resolve yourself to the notion that this is the way the world is now, and you just have to deal with it?
Now, to the good part, and the real reason for this column. This isn’t a story about pizza, or a horrifying possible future for those afflicted with a hankering for cheesy baked dough. This is about you, right now. This is about something that is happening to you right now, has been happening for a while, and will continue to happen, unless we collectively do something to stop it.
Rifle through your pile of bills, your box of bills, your drawer full of bills. We all have one of those. Take out your last PUC bill. Now have a good look at your electricity portion. No, really… HAVE A GOOD LOOK AT IT!
I’m going to assume that you’re an intelligent person. So, I’m not going to belabour all the fine details. If you follow along with the pizza scenario above, you’ll get the idea. What do you see?
As for me, I see me getting charged $27, to deliver $61 of electricity to my house. I see me paying $4 and change to the IESO, (aka the ‘syndicate’ in the pizza story). I see me paying a buck and a half to retire some debt I never incurred. And I see me paying HST for all those privileges of paying everyone else! But hey, there is a %10 discount on my bill, for a ‘clean energy benefit’. I should be cheering, I guess!
But the part that really, really bothers me, is the water portion of my bill. I used less than $3 worth of water last month, 5 cubic metres worth. My total bill for water last month? More than $53!
How is that possible, you may ask? Well, take my $3 worth of water, $24.05 for a ‘basic service charge’, add that up, and then double it! The City is charging me $27 for ‘sewer charges’, to get rid of $3 worth of water!
It’s a bloody good thing the PUC isn’t in the pizza business, or they would have gone under a long time ago. If you knock off the delivery charge for electricity, and the sewer charge the City adds onto the water portion, my bill last month would total less than $100. But as it stands, my modest consumption of less than 700 total KW of power, and a mere 5 cubic metres of water means I get to pay roughly $150, just to have lights and the ability to bathe myself!
But if you go to the PUC website, and look at their ‘water rates’ and ‘electricity rates’ pages, you will see some very nifty propaganda, where they show you how lucky you are to be in the Sault, when compared with places like Sudbury and Thunder Bay. They are getting screwed worse than us, so we should feel fortunate about our fate!
So, let me get this straight. The power companies look upon all of us middle-class working stiffs throughout Ontario as just a huge herd of wildebeests, and they are the lions? Those of us in the Sault should feel fortunate, because we aren’t getting mauled by the lions nearly as bad as those poor devils in Sudbury and Thunder Bay? We should just stay in the middle of the herd, and try to comfort ourselves that it could always be worse? Is that what they are trying to tell us?
The fact is, the PUC is a monopoly. If you want your lights to come on in the Sault, you have to deal with them. You are not free to shop around, you have no alternatives. Individually, they might be really nice people working there, middle-class stiffs, just like you and me. But collectively, they form a machine that continues to grind at the household budgets of every home owner and property owner in the Sault. And eventually, we will have to oppose them collectively, if we want to prevent real hardship from occurring.
People grumbled when the PUC built themselves a new headquarters, for many millions of dollars. But, we got over it. People really grumbled when the water turned brown in the East end. But, eventually, the PUC got a handle on the problem, and the complaints have fizzled out. The water rates in town are in the middle of five consecutive years of 10% increases. By the time it is over, water will cost us 60% more than it used to. Off-peak electricity rates in May, 2013 were $0.067/KWH. The off-peak rate in November of 2014 was $0.077/KWH. That’s a %15 increase, in a year and a half!
So, when is it going to end? What has to happen, before the bills we are obliged to pay, stop escalating? You can keep buying more efficient appliances. You can switch to energy efficient bulbs. You can install a water-miser for a shower head, but you will not win the war. The relentless march towards higher energy costs have been calculated to make sure you never see any real benefit from your efforts. You will continue to pay more for less, and they will keep trying to tell you how lucky you are. Do you feel lucky?
I suppose I should confess to you just where this latest tirade originated. It started for me a few days ago, when the Ontario government announced $120,000,000 in permanent relief on energy costs for Northern Ontario industries. On the surface, it looks like a good thing, right? I mean, we all need jobs, things are rough in the North, nobody wants to see any of our local industry go down, hurting our neighbours and friends, right?
That’s the part that gets me so angry. I see past the politics and the headlines, and I know what this kind of announcement really means. That $120,000,000 will have to be made up somewhere else, so the energy companies can continue to profit, so that infrastructure can be invested in, so that we can continue to bankroll the IESO to sell a huge chunk of our excess power to Michigan.
So, who is going to be left holding the hot potato when the music stops?
Why, regular schmucks like you and me, frantically changing out light bulbs in an effort to keep our PUC bills under control – that’s who!
The most shocking aspect of all of this, is the fact that you and I, own the PUC. You heard me right! The City of Sault Ste. Marie owns a majority interest in the PUC. We own the City, we are the City. So, everything that is happening here, these escalating bills we are all trying to contend with, are things we are doing to ourselves. We elect the City Council, they sit on the boards that control the functions of the City, and they vote for the relentless raises in energy costs we are facing. We are doing it to ourselves!
So, when is it going to stop? Do we let things get bad enough that the working poor and those on fixed incomes get squeezed out, to the point where their power gets cut off? We can look at examples of this, in places like Detroit. There is even a documentary on Netflix about it – you should check it out! And just recently, a family of eight perished in a home in Maryland, likely due to carbon monoxide poisoning, because they were running a gas generator inside their home.
Maybe, just maybe, we should start having these conversations now. Maybe we should start pressuring our local leaders in a real way to do something about this. Maybe we should disregard our herd mentality, and stop comparing ourselves to places like Sudbury and Thunder Bay. Maybe we should be the leaders for once, the pioneers, the brave souls who finally stem the tide, and restore sanity to a monopoly that never ceases in its forward march. Maybe, just maybe…
Wow, why so serious? I suppose I should end off on a positive note! You will be pleasantly surprised to find out you only have a few more months to kick in for the debt retirement charge on your PUC bill! The Ontario government is set to remove that from our bills in January of 2016! Oh happy day!
Oh no. Remember that 10% clean energy discount I got on my last bill? Well, the government plans to drop that, along with the debt retirement charge. The net effect this will have on your PUC bill? It will go up, instead of down – you are going to get to pay even more, come January, you lucky devil!
So, you mad yet?
27 Comments
Wonderful article…I keep saying the exact same thing about PUC and the insurance industry. .. my question though is how do we fight it? Boycott and stop usuing? Thats a little difficult for either (insurance and puc) in this day and age. Call city hall and bitch? Are they even going to listen?
Glad you liked it, Ashley! I think eventually, there will be enough public outrage that it will turn into some form of organized protests. It’s only a matter of time before this really starts to hurt people in a tangible way, and then I think we will see some real activism emerge. For me right now, the key is to get people thinking about it, talking about, and sharing information. So, thanks for participating in that effort!
What are your thoughts on privatized hydro one? That is the Liberals plan I believe. Good or bad thing?
At the risk of sounding like a socialist (I’m really not), I consider electricity and water to be essential services, so much like education, health, and policing, I think power should be government owned and controlled. At least that way, we would know who to blame if we are robbed, and could do something about that with our votes. That’s my opinion, for what it’s worth!
Sorry, should have replied directly to you. My response to you is here in the general comments.
I hate to say your lucky but were I live the delivery charge is $185!
I can only imagine the hardship those kinds of costs must mean for you. I live a couple of football fields away from a hydro generating dam, and my town produces a surplus of power, so paying $27 to deliver $61 worth of juice to my house really frosts my flakes! I hope you get some relief from the outrageous situation you are in, and soon.
Holy! Where do you live?
there are 64 wind turbines in my area that take the power away, although they are not even moving right now at peak need, no wind, then I pay through the nose to get power and put up with all the turbine problems, I WILL be at the protest May13
You may be interested in the protest group trying to do something about the electricity power trip…
http://www.gofundme.com/HydroOneEIE
Sir Adam Beck had it right, cheap and reliable electricity was what gave Ontario the economic advantage which made it the prosperous province which drove the Canadian economy.
Quebec too had cheap and abundant electricity. The big danger with government control is when the government is bad you have no options. Monopolies keep the prices down only as long as they have to maintain a mandate to provide the best service at cheapest cost.
Now we see quasi-socialist provincial (and state) governments deliberately destroying their economic advantage in the name of environmentalism. See if you don’t recognize Agenda 21 at work locally… http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/71136
Ontario is particularly badly afflicted, not just because the bigger they are the harder they fall, but because our democracy was captured by the GTA even before the GEA removed the right of municipalities to say NO to industrial wind and solar projects.
Facts mean nothing to this ideologically driven provincial government and it can only get worse as Ontario continues down the slippery green slope, ignoring the negative experiences of others and the plight of of the citizenry.
http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/eus-green-energy-debacle-shows-the-futility-of-climate-change-policies?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Great read and excellent breakdown! But what’s the missing pizza slice connected to? Who gets that piece? (I’m just a regular ‘schmuck’)
Speaking provincially that could be “line loss” such as when generation is in the North and the demand centers are in the South. Could be the instability of the grid and frequent power outages…
Living in the ‘great’ town of Sudbury we are also bent over by a monopoly GSU – Please sit down before I give you these numbers – ready for it – I pay 260 for delivery, 50 for reg fees and DRC 60. Hst rounds out to a 150 – bringing my electric bill to 1300.
Please keep in mind that is only the electrical portion of the bill.
I hope your still sitting – Water usage (28 cubemeters) 34.84, fixed charge 32.46 and finally sewage waste a whopping 80.41 (per my bill its 119.5% for a total of 147.72.
Now, this is a bi-monthly charge – so we are looking at roughly 700 a month.
Yes, you are absolutely right. When electricity is sent down the line, a small amount is lost due to resistance, but that is calculated in the price formula. So, you are paying for what they send, not what you actually receive. The missing piece of pizza illustrates what you get charged for, and what you actually get as a product.
Thanks for sharing your info! I don’t know how many KWH you used to end up with a $1300 bill for two months worth of electricity, but it sounds like your electric charges are much higher than we have in the Sault. The really interesting part is your water. I paid $53 for 5 cubic metres, you paid $147 for 28 cubic metres. You used five times the water I did, and your bill was only three times higher than mine, which means water in Sudbury is actually cheaper than the Sault! And we live right beside Lake Superior, and draw water directly from the lake! And our PUC company claims on their website that you guys pay more than we do for water. Very interesting info!
Valid points, and thank you for those. My thoughts on public power stem from the fact that we now have several companies, all driven by profit margins, converging on a single customer, who has no choice but to pay whatever they collectively ask. And certain communities are being picked off by predatory practices, while others seem to be surviving a little easier. If all Ontarians faced the same charges from the same source, we might have some unified chance of addressing the problem. That was the crux of my lion and wildebeest analogy in the story.
Divide and conquer is a tactic which the government has employed to advantage; north is pitted against south, rural vs urban, but it is the Ontario Energy Board which permits or denies the Local Distribution Companies their rate increases.
OEB used to adhere to their mandate to ensure cheap, reliable and efficient delivery of electricity, now it toes the green line and so ratepayers find themselves burdened with surplus “unreliables” such as wind and solar. People get to pay for heavily subsidized power AND all the integration infrastructure it requires.
Read this and weep:
http://www.windconcernsontario.ca/what-the-easter-bunny-brought-ontarios-neighbours/ If your herd browses the site they may see that this is not just an occasional lion kill they have to worry about it is a cull of the weak and old on a grand scale.
More fixed costs are being incurred as more greed energy is added to the grid, Peter must be robbed to pay Paul or at least give him a reduced rate; conservation can’t be rewarded, you will just pay more for less.
The Auditor General Report of 2011 exposed the fact that none of the agencies managing the grid had done a proper cost/benefit analysis before the Green Energy Act was inflicted on us…that was when the herd should have turned in unison and trampled it into the ground…
You know what, regarding insurance…particularly out of country health insurance perhaps the way to go is a ‘crowd funding’ model. Here is how it might work.
So you or I go on a vacation. Put up a crowdfunding ‘insurance plan’. When you return and you haven’t used the insurance you either pay the donors back or pass it along to someone else going on vacation. Or if is a group the ‘plan’ keeps growing or remains in place. It continues in that regard in perpetuity(if no one needs the ‘insurance plan’). If some or all of the funding is used you start again. Like insurance….more often that not the funding won’t be needed, but it can always be ‘shared’ down the road in some manner. Might be a great way to ‘cheat’ the insurance companies.
Great idea…Unfortunately it is mandatory to have home and car insurance with ever climbing rates and ever dropping coverage
I recently received my ‘renewal’ offer letter from my car insurance company. There was a $3 increase in my monthly payments for the next year, so I called them up. (I’ve been without a claim for over 25 years, no tickets in the last few years, drive a lame 4-door older sedan). I asked the agent, ‘Hey, where’s my 15% discount on premiums I’m supposed to get, as mandated by the Ontario government?’ She answered, ‘It didn’t work out that way for you.’ Well, if I’m not qualified to get the ‘mandated’ discount, who is? I guess I never read the fine print, that only a select few would see any actual relief from those ever-increasing premiums!
Yes I’m mad I’m dam mad
Absolutely enlightening and excellent well written article! Bravo!
WHOA,,, PISSED OFF IS RIGHT,, REMEMBER WHEN MAYOR PROVENZANO WAS NEWLY ELECTED AND PROMISED COMPLETE TRANSPARENCY WHILE TAKING HIS SEAT AT THE P.U.C. PIG’S BUFFET,, YES DOES ANYONE ELSE REMEMBER? OPEN MEETINGS, YADA, YADA, YADA,,, WE THE PEOPLE OF SAULT STE. MARIE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS CORPORATE GREED,,, UNFATHOMABLE GREED, I HAVE HAD MY P.U.C CUT OFF I AM ON A FIXED INCOME LOWER END,,,, I KNOW MANY, MANY, PEOPLE WHO HAVE HAD THEIR POWER TURNED OFF, WITH CHILDREN, INFANTS, DISABLED, ELDERLY, PREGNANT, ETC,,,, YES I AM BEING VERY TRUTHFUL HERE. ALSO OTHERS STRUGGELING
JUST TO MAKE A PAYMENT. I KNOW A FAMILY NEARBY ME WHO OWED $42,12 AND THEY ASKED FOR AN EXTENSION TILL PAYDAY AND WERE DENIED AND THEIR POWER WAS CUT OFF AND ON TOP OF THAT P.U.C CHARGED AN ASTRONOMICAL CUT OFF FEE,, YADA, YADA, YADA,, THIS FAMILY SUFFERED BOTH PSYCHOLOGICALLY AND PHYSICALLY. WE MUST SEEK SOME FORM OF RECOMPENSE AND SEEK LEGAL COUNSEL, GET PETITION GOING,, FIRE THE COUNCILLORS AT CITY HALL AND THOSE THAT HOLD SEATS,, WHATEVER WE HAVE TO DO TO GET THIS DONE. CORPORATIONS LOOK OUT FOR CORPORATIONS. REMEMBER THE P.U.C BILL THAT ESSAR STEEL OWED? THEIR DEBT WAS FORGIVEN OR SO IT WOULD SEEM,, DO THEY OWN P.U.C? WE OWN P.U.C WE BETTER ELECT HONORABLE REPRESENTATIVES, ELECTORATES THAT ARE FINANCIALLY STUDIOUS THAT CAN BE TRUSTED WITH OUR DOLLARS,,, WAKE UP SHEEPLE,,, WE ARE GETTING SCREWED UP THE KEESTER AND ARE ALLOWING THEM TO KEEP ON KEEPING ON. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE AND OUR RATES ARE GOING UP AGAIN? WE ALL SHOULD BE PISSED,,, WHEN I SEE FAMILIES SUFFERING IN THE MIDST OF THEIR GREED AND AGENDA IT SAYS ALOT ABOUT THOSE WE TRUST OR DID TRUST,,, WE GIVE TOO MUCH POWER,,, TO THESE ELECTED CITY OFFICIALS… WATCH TO SAVE FACE THEY WILL PROBABLY DO SOME DAMAGE CONTROL AND BYPASS THE CITY TRANSIT CUTS AND SAY “LOOKEY HERE, WE AREN’T ALL THAT BAD.” HA, HA, HA YOU CAN FOOL ALL OF THE PEOPLE SOME OF THE TIME BUT YOU CAN’T FOOL ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIME, I WONDER WHAT THEIR SERVING TONIGHT AT THE PIG TROUGH?
The savages ate it… Or the poor delivery guy because he won’t be getting any tips. Lol
Same as gas prices. I’ve said they should be gov’t regulated because they charge whatever they want and get away with it. Drive to the next city and pay l5 cents/litre less. It’s NOT right.
And they wonder why big business is taking their companies and manufacturers down south where electricity and water is much cheaper. There goes the jobs we should have and the gov’t says things will improve? Really? Not for us northerners. They’ve priced us all out of jobs and affordable living. I know so many people who’ve moved down south and even with the higher costs of houses, everything else is so much cheaper that they are so much further ahead. And… They have jobs…. GREAT paying jobs!