A recent Seaway News opinion piece (April 10, 2024), hinted at government gouging on natural gas bills… that’s nothing.
In Cornwall, a 70 year old pensioner received a bill for $324.68 from Enbridge Gas for just a 1 month period (Jul 05, 2022 – Aug 03, 2022). That’s a whopping 450m3 of natural gas heating for the summertime month of July.
It seems Enbridge was delivering the old fellow’s gas throughout the preceding year, and using only “guesstimates” when billing instead of reading the homeowner’s meter. Then as many a monopoly might do, Enbridge felt itself free to lump all that unbilled gas onto one invoice …though at more than 2 and a half times the price in effect when actually delivered.
Enbridge billed 30.46¢ per cubic meter for the “under-guesstimated” natural gas, although the government restricted price was just 11.97¢ to 19.57¢ per cubic meter during the months in question …with GST and Carbon Charges adding insult and injury.
Neither Enbridge, nor the Ontario Energy Board, nor any government representative (elected and other), has come to the aid of this Cornwall pensioner despite pleas through email and phone. Even worse, is that similar wide-spread overbilling across Enbridge’s 3.8 million Ontario customer base has also gone unchecked by regulators. No calculator is needed to see the possibility of millions of dollars wrongly pocketed here… and unjustified GST and Carbon Charges to boot.
The weary Cornwall pensioner has withheld payment of the wrongful invoice despite Enbridge’s repeated threats of collection action and service termination; threats which may be carried out as early as the 1st of May.
Yours,
James Marshall
Cornwall, ON
P.S. (For Mr. McIntosh)…
– Bizarre to tax a tax, i.e. Goods and Services Tax on top of Carbon Pricing? Well our Government and its Spokesmodel Justin Trudeau would like everyone to know that carbon pricing is not a tax but rather a charge, and that no transaction of any value is exempt from GST, even without delivery of an actual service or goods, unless – in this instance – a bureaucrat were to exercise actual gumption and formally exempt the carbon fee from GST. (personal take on actual telecon with taxation official 2 years ago)
– Bizarre that a source of sheltering warmth be taxed, given its general acceptance as a human necessity? (see: Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370-396)
– Bizarre that a supposed threat to our earth be raised to the status of an international currency, a prized virtual commodity to buy, sell, and trade? (see: https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/
pricing-pollution-how-it-will-work/putting-price-on-carbon-pollution.html)
– Bizarre that a carbon tax is levied on a homeowner’s natural gas, while Ontario electricity customers receive a rebate, despite the increase in gas- and oil-fired generation of electricity (5.9 TWh or 4% in 2017, 19.1TWh or 12% in 2023)? …(see chart: https://www.ieso.ca/en/Power-Data/Supply-Overview/Transmission-Connected-Generation)
