British Columbia’s utility wild west
A British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC) inquiry into submetering company Enerpro has exposed a disturbing regulatory gap in the province’s housing system. Complaints from tenants across BC suggest that private submetering companies are charging opaque and inflated utility rates while helping landlords sidestep laws meant to protect renters. As affordability pressures intensify across the province, the proceedings have revealed how weak oversight allows private companies to profit from essential services while leaving tenants with little recourse.
In multi-unit residential buildings, individual meters are often installed to measure each unit’s utility consumption. Submetering companies install, manage, and monitor those meters on behalf of landlords or property managers, then bill residents directly. Enerpro, for instance, operates meters that measure hot and cold water usage, as well as heating and cooling consumption. In 2025, the BCUC received complaints from residents in Victoria buildings serviced by Enerpro. Tenants pointed to exorbitantly high utility charges and a lack of billing transparency. In response, the commission launched an inquiry into whether Enerpro should be classified as a public utility and therefore subject to regulation. As part of the investigation, the BCUC invited public submissions, and hundreds of complaints have since poured in from across the province detailing abuses made possible by the lack of regulatory oversight.
Unlike bills issued by BC Hydro and other utilities providers, Enerpro bills list neither the number of kilowatts consumed nor the rates charged per kilowatt. Instead, bills state only the amount of water, in litres, that was heated or cooled, along with the total charge. Customers are left to calculate the rates themselves and cannot independently verify how those rates are determined, making it difficult to identify or challenge potentially inflated charges. Some residents allege that landlords are using Enerpro to pass common-area and infrastructure costs onto tenants through utility bills, yet confirming this is difficult without greater billing transparency.
When residents ask how recovery rates are determined for particular buildings, Enerpro offers vague explanations. In one response, the company stated: “The recovery rate is a blended calculated cost recovery rate of the fixed costs, the variable costs, and the consumption for the building.” When tenants pressed for clarification on how those figures were actually calculated and “blended,” Enerpro declined to elaborate. Enerpro has blamed the BCUC for the lack of transparent billing. According to the company, the BCUC suggested at some point over the past two decades that detailed billing could imply that an entity is subject to government regulation. Enerpro appears to have taken from this the self-serving lesson that bills should remain vague and uninformative. It is doubtful that the BCUC intended to tell the company to withhold information from tenants. No rule requires Enerpro to avoid providing detailed bills. In fact, BC’s Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB) has stated that the company is legally obligated to issue transparent utility bills. Yet Enerpro continues to refuse to do so unless compelled by local bylaws.
The RTB has also alleged that Enerpro is helping landlords violate residential tenancy laws. In British Columbia, landlords may collect a security deposit equal to half of one month’s rent. As the RTB reiterated in its submission to the BCUC, landlords—or their agents, including Enerpro—cannot collect additional security deposits beyond that amount. Yet Enerpro routinely collects extra deposits from tenants in residential buildings while acting as an agent of the landlord. In buildings managed by Village Gate Homes in Vancouver, for example, Enerpro collects an additional $100 deposit per unit on top of the deposit already collected by the landlord.
When tenants ask how this policy complies with the law, Enerpro refuses to answer. CEO Steven Roka stated in an email: “We are awaiting BCUC’s response regarding our services and will provide more information once we have it. Our intent is to always comply with the BCUC. This review proceeding will provide clarity to everyone.” This response is odd because the laws governing tenancy deposits are administered by the Residential Tenancy Branch, not the BCUC.
Enerpro also charges an “administration fee” directly to end-users through monthly bills. As the RTB noted in its submission, landlords and their agents cannot charge non-optional service fees under the Residential Tenancy Regulation. Because Enerpro’s fees are mandatory and tied to utility provision, they appear to violate the regulation. As with the security deposits, Enerpro has not defended the legality of these charges when questioned by tenants. Instead, the company has stated that it does not know whether the fees comply with the law.
According to Enerpro, further regulation is unnecessary because “oversight is from landlords and strata corporations.” In practice, however, landlords provide little meaningful oversight and are often enabling—whether through negligence or self-interest—conduct that may violate residential tenancy law. If the RTB is correct that the non-optional fees violate the Residential Tenancy Act, it is remarkable that no landlord appears to have challenged the practice in more than twenty years. But landlords have little incentive to intervene when the arrangement benefits them. If Enerpro funds its operations through fees charged directly to tenants rather than payments from landlords, property owners effectively offload those costs onto renters. As a result, the burden of oversight falls almost entirely on residents, who must identify problems and pursue complaints themselves.
Throughout the BCUC proceedings, Enerpro has denied responsibility for any alleged legal violations and has instead attempted to shift blame onto landlords and strata corporations. Because landlords determine cost recovery rates, Enerpro argues that it “must abide by these numbers as directed.” Likewise, the company says it only collects additional security deposits when instructed to do so by landlords or strata corporations. In effect, Enerpro’s defence is that it bears no responsibility because it is merely following orders. But that argument does not absolve a company of legal obligations. If a landlord instructs a company to engage in unlawful practices, the company still has a duty to refuse.
Submetering companies like Enerpro also appear to structure their business models to avoid regulatory scrutiny. The Utilities Commission Act defines public utilities partly through the ownership of utility equipment, and the BCUC has previously ruled that submetering equipment qualifies as utility equipment. Enerpro therefore avoids directly owning the meters installed in the buildings it services. Instead, the meters are leased through third-party equipment leasing companies. The apparent purpose of this arrangement is to avoid falling under the authority of the provincial regulator. Yet the Utilities Commission Act also states that simply “operating” utility equipment may be enough to qualify as a public utility. Since Enerpro still operates the meters, the BCUC should classify it accordingly.
Whatever the outcome of the inquiry, the proceedings have already revealed a broader regulatory failure. Private submetering companies in BC are working alongside landlords and developers in a system that appears to enable routine violations of tenant protections. Under the current framework, tenants themselves must recognize that something may be wrong and then navigate a complaints process through the RTB or BCUC. Even if Enerpro is ultimately regulated, landlords may simply switch to another unregulated provider. One resident told the BCUC that their property manager said exactly that: if Enerpro becomes regulated, the building will move to a different company instead.
Other provinces have taken a different approach. In Ontario, submetering companies operate under a licensing regime. Given that the BCUC has already determined that submetering equipment falls within its jurisdiction, it would make more sense for the province to regulate all submetering companies proactively instead of waiting for complaints to emerge one case at a time.
Canada is in the midst of an affordability crisis, and nowhere is that pressure more acute than in cities like Vancouver. Homeowners typically receive a single, straightforward utility bill from providers like BC Hydro. Renters, meanwhile, can end up paying several times more for the same usage through opaque private billing systems. Those least able to absorb the extra costs are often the ones being gouged the most. In one heartbreaking submission to the BCUC, a single mother living in subsidized housing explained that her utility costs were five times higher than what she had been promised. Enough is enough. BC needs to crack down on private companies profiting from the resale of essential utilities.
Eric Wilkinson is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia.