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There are a lot of people in rent-controlled units in the GTA. This could actually raise the rates for those who actually have to pay on an individual basis. I'm not sure if the building gets some sort of preferential rate from the hydro companies due to economies of scale.
Not just between countries but between States and Provinces and municipality to municipality. Heck it can vary in an apartment building as per my example. I feel weird that my neighbour who just moved in because he lives in the exact same unit, exact same dimensions but is paying quite a bit more.
I could be wrong, but BC hydro rates are the same across the province. They serve 95 percent of BC according to their site.
I did learn something though...New Westminster, a suburb and former capital of BC, has it's own electric company and is not served by BC Hydro.
Beats me. I don't know or recall anything about that. Did that actually happen? I must have been in lala land at the time.
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I can't seem to find it on the net. It was a rebate back to the customers....slowly coming back to me. It wasn't for a particular amount of time, but a dollar amount, which ended up giving me free hydro for quite a few months. It wasn't one of those rebates that you get for reno's etc but was given to everyone.
It's because of inflation - and because you have seniority of tenure. I have a neighbor that just moved into an identical apartment on the same floor as me but his rent is higher than mine in spite of me being here a few years now and having annual rent raises (not much, fortunately). But his rent will always be higher than mine now because I have seniority of tenure.
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Well as much as I feel bad, i'll take my seniority of tenure and not having to pay utilities
I could be wrong, but BC hydro rates are the same across the province. They serve 95 percent of BC according to their site.
I did learn something though...New Westminster, a suburb and former capital of BC, has it's own electric company and is not served by BC Hydro.
I'm not sure how it is in Ontario but I guess what i'm getting at is it is hard to pin down how hydro rates impact everyone because rates don't drill down to the individual level what people are actually paying. I don't pay hydro but my neighbour does. He'd be more concerned about rates than I would be. If someone looked at generic Ontario hydro rates they could conclude that everyone in Ontario is paying that and that is just not the case. This is what I mean by it being hard to compare COL as there are so many variables such as the case of my example.
Just looked at an old Hydro bill. On top of the usage charge, we have a basic charge of about 18 cents per day, so $5.87 for 32 days. My usage charge of $17.16. A rate ride charge of $1.15. A regional transit fee of $.06240 per day for a total of $2 and GST $1.31. Making my total bill for a 32 day period $27.49
Hydro electricity. And municipal water. The water is cleaner and safer too.
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Not sure you can make that claim as a general statement. The quality of water in the US varies widely. Heck, I moved 60 miles from one part of New Jersey to another, and the quality of the water is different here than it is where my mother lives. She has good artesian well water, and you can taste the difference. I have reservoir water here, and it's meh. My sister in the Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania has water from a spring on the property, and it's the best water I ever tasted, even better than the well water in the place I visit in Ontario.
New York City has excellent water, brought down from 50 miles upstate through water tunnels.
I thought that good water is one of the things Detroit has going for it. Sure, its system has suffered from a lack of investment, but my understanding is that the water quality is still acceptable. Are you thinking of Flint? Maybe I've got it wrong, though, and Detroit's system is a mess.
I thought that good water is one of the things Detroit has going for it. Sure, its system has suffered from a lack of investment, but my understanding is that the water quality is still acceptable. Are you thinking of Flint? Maybe I've got it wrong, though, and Detroit's system is a mess.
Yes, I think I am.
Detroit has issues with its system, but Flint had the actual water problem.
Interestingly, at an engineering event I attended the other day, one of the panelists said "The wars of the future will be fought over water."
Not sure you can make that claim as a general statement. The quality of water in the US varies widely. Heck, I moved 60 miles from one part of New Jersey to another, and the quality of the water is different here than it is where my mother lives. She has good artesian well water, and you can taste the difference. I have reservoir water here, and it's meh. My sister in the Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania has water from a spring on the property, and it's the best water I ever tasted, even better than the well water in the place I visit in Ontario.
New York City has excellent water, brought down from 50 miles upstate through water tunnels.
Then there's Detroit.
You're right, I was being too general. Some of the most delicious, purest and softest water I've ever had in the States was glacial seep water from an underground spring in a park in the mountains in Montana, as well as Fort Ross piped water from the Russian River in California. That water in both places was so good it should have been worth its weight in gold. Maybe one day in the future it will be, if it's still there.
The very hardest and worst tasting I've experienced in the States in the west was in Los Angeles and San Diego and in Tucson, Arizona. And all of the surface water in the farming regions throughout the state of Missouri is brown and toxic with agricultural run off and it stinks of mold and rot. The people there absolutely depend on deeply drilled well water for safe drinking water, and that's very hard and doesn't taste good but at least it's safer.
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Did that actually happen? I must have been in lala land at the time. 
