With high heat incoming, fewer than 400 of B.C.’s free air conditioners have been installed

As the B.C. government warns of high heat incoming next week, only about 360 of its free portable air conditioners for the vulnerable have been installed.

BC Hydro confirmed the number Friday, adding that to date, it has received some 3,000 applications for the units through its Energy Conservation Assistance Program collaboration with the Ministry of Health.

2:16 B.C. to invest $10 million in free air conditioners for vulnerable residents

About 2,000 of those applications have been processed, Kyle Donaldson told Global News.

“It is a popular program, but it also is a program that is in its very early stages,” the spokesperson explained. “The numbers, the growth that you’ve seen over the last couple of weeks will not be the pace moving forward.”

Donaldson said BC Hydro will work with its contracting crews and the provincial government to ensure more units can be deployed more quickly in the coming months.

2:09 Renters in B.C. told they can’t have air conditioners

At the end of June, the Ministry of Health committed $10 million in funding to distribute about 8,000 free, portable air conditioners to the most vulnerable over a period of three years.

At the time, Minister Adrian Dix said he expected about half of them would go to apartments or multi-unit dwellings “with a balance in single-family dwellings.”

That news came more than two years after an unprecedented “heat dome” killed more than 600 people in B.C. between June 25 and July 1, 2021.

A subsequent report from the BC Coroners Service estimated 93 per cent of them may have been without air conditioning, and 76 per cent may have been without a fan. Most “lived in socially or materially deprived neighbourhoods,” compared with the general population.

1:52 Air conditioning use spikes in B.C.

While not calling it a heat dome, Emergency Management and Climate Readiness Minister Bowinn Ma and provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry warned Thursday of a heat event incoming next week.

Temperatures are expected to reach the high 20s in coastal regions, mid-30s on the South Coast, and mid to high 30s in the Interior, although the government doesn’t anticipate pulling the trigger on its BC Heat Alert and Response System.

Provincial funding is available to help communities keep cooling centres open, staff them and distribute bottled water, Ma said, as indoor temperatures above 30 C can be harmful to human health.

2:50 Open House: Air conditioning strata rules

Meanwhile, advocate Monica Bhandari said the province’s efforts with the air conditioning units don’t go far enough. The program ought to have been implemented before the summer like the one expected next week, she said.

“I have a lot of concerns with the way this program has been rolled out. It seems quite haphazard in my view,” the chair for the New Westminster chapter of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) told Global News.

Bhandari said she doesn’t believe 8,000 units will make a sufficient dent in the need in a province as populous as B.C. Landlord approval for installation is a barrier as well, she added.

Ma said Thursday “it is important for landlords to work with their tenants to find solutions.”