Cost of energy forcing many to go without necessities, StatsCan survey says

As the cost of living continues to rise, new data from Statistics Canada shows one in seven Canadians are reducing or going without things like food and medicine to keep their heat on. 

It's a reality that rings true for Calgarian Crystal Bassett, who says she and her husband play a balancing game every month when it comes time to pay the bills, especially the utility bill, which hit $700 last month. 

"Last year our bill was $323 cheaper than it is this year, and nothing's changed," she told CBC News.

"Me and my husband together make more now than we have ever, and we are probably the most bill-broke — it's what we call it — then we have ever been."

According to Statistics Canada's social survey on energy use, which was released at the end of October, about 15 per cent of Canadian households had to reduce or forgo expenses for basic necessities, such as food and medicine, for at least one month in the past year in order to pay an energy bill.

Almost eight per cent of households reported doing this for at least three months. 

One in 10 Canadian households reported that they had been late or unable to pay their energy bills in the past 12 months due to high energy prices.

Bassett says it is something she experiences in her own life, and in the lives of the families she sees in her job working with community members experiencing food insecurity.

"To see a family that never really dealt with struggle, they never had the lived experience — and then, because of the way the economy's going right now, just one thing after another, and they lost almost everything. It's really sad to see," she said.

"It's disheartening. It's depressing. It's frustrating."

Ameera Shivji is a communications specialist with Vibrant Communities Calgary, an agency working to address the root causes of poverty in the city. She says the latest figures from Statistics Canada don't surprise her at all.

"Making tradeoffs for basic necessities is something that we encounter all the time, and especially right now in the cost-of-living crisis that we're in," Shivji said.

She said any type of emergency can force people into having to make "unbelievable choices."

"Utilities have gone up so much in Alberta over the last little while and it's making such a difference to people's budgets. People can't absorb the increases that they've been seeing lately," she said.

The StatsCan study also found that, due to rising energy prices, not all Canadian households are able to adequately heat and cool their dwellings.

In 2023, according to the study, 14 per cent of Canadian households reported that they kept their dwelling at an unsafe or uncomfortable temperature for at least one month because of unaffordable heating or cooling costs.

Shivji says she and her colleagues at Vibrant Communities Calgary, who have been working in the sector for a number of years, have never seen the situation as bad as it is now. 

"This is unprecedented, what we're seeing right now," she said.

"We hear about people making tradeoffs all the time. So, for instance, people choosing not to eat in order to pay their electricity bill, and keeping their house uncomfortably cold so that they will keep their bills lower. And we hear about people choosing to give up a prescription, or taking them on odd or even days, just so that they can afford to eat."

Bassett says she isn't holding out much hope for the situation to improve unless the people in charge start feeling the pain, too.

"Until they feel the unease that the community members that I work with or that I sometimes feel, I don't think that they can truly understand," Bassett said.