An adviser working for a task force in Nova Scotia concerned with energy costs in this Atlantic province said he is shocked by the number of households struggling to pay electricity and heating bills.

Roger Colton, a consultant at Fisher, Sheehan & Colton in Massachusetts, USA, found that 43% of households in Nova Scotia allocate 6% or more of their average after-tax income to energy, which is considered equivalent to energy poverty.

Colton explained that this is the definition of energy poverty, adding that the result is that these households struggle to pay their bills and sometimes have to sacrifice other expenses to ensure they have electricity or enough heating oil to warm their homes.

He also added that in 40 years of research across 40 of the 50 US states, he has never seen a worse situation than he witnessed in Nova Scotia.

"I haven't found in any of those states that 30, 40, or 50% of households suffer from energy poverty," Colton said from his office in Boston, the capital of Massachusetts, in an online interview.

The situation on Cape Breton Island is the worst

According to Colton, the area with the highest energy poverty rate in Nova Scotia is Cape Breton Island, which forms the northeastern tip of the province.

For example, in North Sydney, part of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM), which forms the largest population center on the island, 1,819 households out of a total of 2,722, or 67%, suffer from energy poverty.

In Eskasoni, also on Cape Breton Island, which is the largest Indigenous population center in Atlantic Canadian provinces, 87% of households suffer from energy poverty, according to Colton.

These figures paint a sad reality for Erika Shea, CEO of New Dawn Enterprises, an association that provides housing and discounted meals in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.

"Each winter, some clients are forced to cancel their subscription to our food distribution program," Shea says regretfully, "and the cost of each meal is only five dollars, but it's a cost they cannot afford in winter because they also have to pay heating costs."

Colton pointed to a gap in energy poverty between households living in large cities and those living in rural areas.

While nearly 50% of households suffer from energy poverty in Digby and Yarmouth, two small towns in the far southwest of Nova Scotia, the percentage is only 30% in Halifax, the provincial capital and largest city.

Colton explained here that "the average after-tax income in rural areas is much lower than the average after-tax income in urban areas."