With 20 per cent of Canadian households facing energy poverty—when individuals lack reliable and affordable access to energy services—it is surprising how little political and research attention this social issue receives.

Motivated by this research gap, Mylène Riva, an associate professor in McGill’s Department of Geography, and her collaborators set out to identify hotspots of energy poverty in Canada and the socioeconomic factors driving them.

“Energy poverty is a situation that happens when people cannot access enough energy services at home to meet their needs, maintain healthy indoor temperature, and live in dignity,” Riva explained in an interview with The Tribune.

In their study, Riva and her collaborators first determined Canada’s geographic distribution of energy poverty at the municipal level using data from the 2016 Canadian Census. The study uses two common thresholds to define households as energy-poor: The narrower one was spending more than 5.4 per cent of their total income on domestic energy services—a figure that is twice the national median—while the more conservative benchmark was 10 per cent—a common figure used in other countries.

The authors found that clusters of energy poverty—localized areas with characteristically high energy poverty—are not evenly distributed across the country.

“When we look at the spatial clustering, we see that [energy poverty] is especially problematic in Atlantic provinces, Ontario, and the northern parts of provinces,” Riva reported.

Nearly two million Canadians live in municipalities classified by the study as energy-poor. However, this figure is likely an underestimate, particularly in urban areas where many renters have utilities included in their rent, making energy costs more challenging to track.

Next, the researchers identified socioeconomic, demographic, and housing factors underlying energy poverty. They found that older populations, higher unemployment rates, lower incomes, and old or unaffordable housing were all associated with increased energy poverty. Rural municipalities were also more vulnerable.

Although the study did not explicitly analyze energy prices, the researchers suspect regional differences in the cost of energy may contribute to disparities. Atlantic Canada and Ontario, where energy prices are high, appear to correlate with elevated levels of energy poverty.

These findings highlight geographical inequalities in energy access and have strong policy implications.

“Energy poverty and climate change are happening in the context of the severe housing shortage and housing affordability crisis in Canada,” Riva said. “So, there should be more effort to build affordable housing, but also housing that is energy-efficient. There also are a lot of investments in improving the energy efficiency of houses.”

Beyond housing, policies such as increasing the minimum income and capping electricity prices could substantially benefit people facing financial hardship.

“My hope is that this research and others that look at energy poverty across Canada bring this issue a little further up on the policy agenda,” Riva said. “In a country like Canada, it is unacceptable that 20 per cent of households are potentially facing energy poverty.”

Moving forward, Riva advocates for future research on the impacts of energy poverty in the summer. So far, she has investigated this topic in Nova Scotia and Quebec from a health perspective.

“Through research that we have done in Bridgewater, for example, we see that people living with activity limitations or chronic health problems are more likely to experience energy poverty,” Riva said. “They also might be more disproportionately impacted by the health effects of living in cold dwellings [in the winter] or hot dwellings in the summer.”In the face of climate change, Canada plans to transition toward more sustainable energy. To make a just transition, Riva emphasized that we must consider the differential impacts that policy decisions can make on various groups: The energy sector should focus on social equity and address the needs of vulnerable people, who often deal with socioeconomic challenges beyond energy poverty, during the transition to cleaner energy.