HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Lucknow Sentinel, 2016-12-14, Page 18Wednesday, December 14, 2016 • Lucknow Sentinel 19
Father of two hopes his electricity will be restored by Hydro One
Denis Langlois
Owen Sound Sun Times
A father of two from Kil-
syth, whose family has been
without power for six
months, is hoping his string
of bad financial luck will
soon come to an end.
Scott, who asked that his
last name not be used, said
he lost his well -paying job as
a systems analyst in 2012
due to restructuring.
Soon after, he was diag-
nosed with kidney disease.
He was on dialysis for a year
and a half before undergoing
a kidney transplant in
March.
Three months after his
surgery, while he was still
recovering at home, Hydro
One disconnected the elec-
tricity service to his rural
home after his family had
fallen far behind on their
hydro bill.
The family has been using
a generator, which uses
about $25 in fuel each day
and has already broken
down once, so they can at
least heat up their water tank
for showers, do a bit of laun-
dry and cook some food.
Scott said all he wants is
for his hydro to be restored
for the winter.
"It's going to be a
nightmare trying to keep this
generator going in the win-
ter. Keeping it going in the
summer is one thing but in
the winter, it's just going to
be a nightmare," he said in
an interview.
"I just want the hydro back
on long enough that we can
put our house up on the
market in the spring. Imag-
ine trying to show a home
and you have a generator
running in the back or
there's just no power. It's
really hurting our ability to
sell our home when there's
no electricity in the home.
"We just want at the very
least to have our hydro on
until we can get the house
on the market and sold. We
have lots of equity in our
home, so we can pay off our
bill. We can start over."
Hydro One announced
Wednesday that it will be
reaching out to its roughly
1,400 residential customers
without electrical service to
arrange reconnection for the
remainder of winter.
Ontario's largest utility
provider says it will waive
reconnection fees, which
can be as high as $300,
work with its customers to
come up with an afforda-
ble payment plan and
inform them
about assistance programs
available to help custom-
ers in arrears.
A Hydro One spokesper-
son said Thursday that 56
customers in the area that
includes Owen Sound, most
of Grey County and a north-
ern portion of Bruce County
have had their hydro discon-
nected due to unpaid
balances.
Nancy Clark said custom-
ers without power are
encouraged to contact
Hydro One as soon as possi-
ble. The utility will work with
each customer to get their
electricity services restored.
Scott said he is hopeful his
power will soon be
reconnected.
He said he began falling
behind on his hydro bill after
losing his job and it is now
about $17,000 in arrears.
Scott said his old stone
home is not energy efficient
and a big part of the problem
is that it has an electric hot
water tank.
It used to be heated with
electric baseboards, but he
has been heating his home
with a wood stove for a while
now.
He said he tried, before
Hydro One announced its
new Winter Relief Program,
to work out a payment plan
with the utility provider, but
he couldn't afford the $2,000
monthly payment that they
proposed.
Scott, who is on the
Canadian Pension Plan,
said his wife runs a restau-
rant in Tobermory, but it
is only open in the tourist
season. She works odd
jobs in the off-season, he
said.
The couple has two sons,
aged 19 and 16, who still live
at home. A year and a half
ago, one of his sons was also
diagnosed with a kidney
disease.
Scott said his family is
using most of their money to
keep gas in the generator.
"We never know when
the thing is going to go
down or break. We have
worries because a couple
times we get mild weather
out here in the country and
the drainage starts draining
underneath our basement
and normally there's a
sump pump to move the
water out. So if we don't
have any hydro, our base-
ment is just going to fill up
and flood and that's where
all our firewood is. So that's
a fear I'm living with all the
time;" he said.
Francesca Dobbyn, execu-
tive director of the United
MedLINCS program discontinued in 2017
As a community partner
with the Distributed Educa-
tion Network of Schulich
School of Medicine and
Dentistry, Western Univer-
sity, the Bruce Grey (Walk-
erton) MedLINCS Commit-
tee recently met to discuss
the results of the 10 year
review of the MedLINCS
summer program and the
subsequent proposal for
revisions to the program.
The proposal indicated the
intention to discontinue the
clinical experience for the
Westem medical students and
revise the high school sum-
mer programweek.
The Committee felt the new
proposal lacked substance
and failed to ensure a smooth
and timely transition to the
new format while meeting the
July 2017 target. Due to these
unfortunate circumstances,
the Walkerton MedLINCS
Committee regrets to
announce that the program
will not be relaunching in 2017
in Bruce and Grey.
We would like to extend
our deepest thanks to the
Municipality of Brockton
and all our community part-
ners for their support in the
past 10 successful years.
MedLINCS (formerly
known as MedQUEST) is an
interactive summer program
for local high school students
in grades 10 and 11.
The week-long program
involved participants work-
ing alongside medical stu-
dents and other health care
professionals to explore
health career options.
Way of Bruce Grey, said
while she is "absolutely
thrilled" that Hydro One is
going to work to get all of its
customers reconnected for
the winter, much more
needs to be done to fix the
root of the energy poverty
problem.
"We still have to, ulti-
mately, resolve the afforda-
bility factor," she said.
"It's great that we're not
disconnecting people over
winter. We want that to hap-
pen. But we also don't want
a slew of disconnects come
April 1 because people sim-
ply cannot afford to pay the
bills."
Dobbyn said the United
Way, which oversees a utility
assistance program, has sev-
eral suggestions for helping
to resolve the issue.
They include increasing
Ontario Electricity Support
Program rates, which help
low-income households
with their hydro bills.
The province could also
increase the payout for
Ontario Works and the
Ontario Disability Support
Program, which she said is
"certainly not enough to
cover housing costs:'
Ontario must also deal
with the issue of precarious
work, she said.
Dobbyn said conserving
electricity is simply not
enough to significantly lower
a person's hydro bill due to
global adjustment, delivery
and other fees.
She said she would like to
see all hydro companies
implement a winter morato-
rium on disconnections like
the one Hydro One has in
place.
Westario Power Inc.,
which provides power to
23,000 customers in parts
of Bruce, Grey, Wellington
and Huron counties,
decided in 2015 against
implementing a policy to
not disconnect people in
winter. The Sun Times was
unable to reach Lisa Milne,
president and CEO of the
municipally owned distri-
bution company, on
Thursday.
Dobbyn said she will be
keeping a close eye on Bill
27, which is now before the
Ontario Legislature. If
passed, it will allow the
Ontario Energy Board to ban
winter disconnections
across the province.
Hydro One is encouraging
customers who are having a
hard time paying their hydro
bill to call their communica-
tions centre at
1-888-664-9376.
St. Anthony's to host
Christmas Day Community Meal
St. Anthony's Church is
welcoming the community
to a Christmas Day Com-
munity Meal on Dec. 25,
2016.
The no -charge meal takes
place at the Kincardine
church hall at 749 Russell
Street, with doors opening
at 12:30 p.m. and dinner at
1 p.m.
The meal will feature a
homemade turkey dinner
with all the trimmings, and
the venue is wheelchair
accessible.
Freewill offerings are
welcome.
For planning purposes
and to save a spot, call Sam
or Heather at 519-396-2001
by Dec. 21, 2016.
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