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April 10th 2023

Commercial Society as a Dehumanizing Force

or: the framing of Quebec's Power Outage

The modern electrical grid is absolutely essential to nearly all of our lives(1). Heating in the dead of winter, cooking on a stove, charging of digital technology(2). Even personal vehicles, for so long dominated by petroleum based energy, have now been promised by the Trudeau government to be 100% electric by 2035. Yes, Energy Power rules our lives, without it the modern world would be no more, as would modern human beings. But what if said modern humans were to live in the world as is with no power? There of course has been many instances of this - we call it a power outage - and it is fairly uncommon in Canada, all things considered. At this very moment of reading there is likely upwards of a thousand Canadians without access to energy in the form of electricity, which can be tracked in real time on PowerOutage.com. These outages are usually resolved very quickly, as authorities are well aware of the necessity to keep the power on, and what would ensue if it somehow were to fail for an extended period of time. This urgency comes from the recognition that access to energy power transcends consumerist want, elastic desires, but is, at this stage of human development, a need.

Last Wednesday night (April 5th 2023) an ice storm hit Quebec off the shores of the St. Lawrence, devastating most especially the great city of Montreal. Waking up Thursday morning over a million Quebecers were without power, and at least one person died as a result. Thanks to a large mobilization of public utility workers by Hydro-Quebec, the province restored power to the majority of those who lost it, and by Saturday, approximately 100,000 remained powerless, an order of magnitude smaller. Unfortunately, human suffering was not totally averted; carbon monoxide poisoning has occurred from the usage of portable heating indoors, an inevitable result of individuals and families losing power on cold nights. As Quebec recovers from the debilitating storm, I believe it to be imperative for Canadian society to ask itself - what is the relationship between the individual and their energy source?

This may seem like a nonsensical question, but I propose it for a reason. Look back at every single link that I have provided thus far relating to the Quebec power outage - all four, including PowerOutage.com. There is included a common, dehumanizing terminology. In each of the four sources the people of Quebec who have lost power, who have in rare cases died, who in other cases still go without it, are repeatedly referred to as customers. Customers, the CBC says, have no energy to heat their home, or cook their child's dinner. Customers, the CBC says, will have to go a few more days with this being so. One Customer, the CBC says, has died as a result. If my rhetorical style is not sufficiently clear, I am extremely disheartened by the labelling of electricity-dependent individuals as customers. I am disheartened by the relationship between individual and energy source being viewed as one of producer-customer. The thought of a public necessity being treated as a commodity for citizens to buy and consume(3), rather than to share in ownership of, evokes a certain type of depressive bleakness. Take for instance the public control of sidewalks - am I a customer when going for a suburban walk? If an underground landmine blew up a portion, would customers lose access to walkways? That may sound absurd, but then so to should calling those in Montreal who lost power Hydro-Quebec customers! The crown corporation is a public utility after all, 100% owned by the provincial government, and just like the ability to freely walk, access to electricity is a human need, and ought to be a citizens right. An April 9th piece out of the Ottawa Citizen read:

"Another 50,000 Hydro-Quebec customers should see their power restored by end of day Sunday, the utility said while warning some of its remaining repairs to lines damaged by last week’s deadly ice storm may not be completed until Tuesday".

Citizens of the province pay for Hydro-Quebec in a similar way as they do for sidewalks via taxes. The demand for these things is not elastic(4), and they are not produced with the sole of aim of making profit for a company. If energy is not considered a product, then its consumer should not be considered a customer. The insistence on labelling those who lost power in Quebec as customers, rather than human beings, is a clear message to the public that energy is a commodity, in the same way Doritos chips are. And what an insistence it is! I am yet to find a media outlet that labels energy consumers as anything other than customers. Instead of sourcing 10 articles, I will rather have my reader briefly research 'April 2023 Quebec power outage', and examine the results. The media, however, is just quoting the public officials themselves! On Hydro-Quebec's own website it refers to customers whenever individuals are in question (for example, on their statistics regarding service interruptions by region). When even government owned industry views their relationship with the public as that of producer-customer, then complete commodification is truly embedded into the minds and mechanics of society.

The reader of this diatribe might scoff at its apparent inconsequentialness, perhaps viewing the tedious semantics of government and media publications as not all too meaningful. But might I suggest that the constant portrayal of energy-dependent citizens as customers of the government may have wider implications? Might I add that it says something deeper about our society? That, however much we view ourselves as inheritors of an enlightened liberalism that prizes the dignity of the individual above all else, maybe we instead drown it in atomized sorrows? How does it feel to have no relationship to your source of energy, no ability to obtain it whatsoever, other than through callous 'cash payment'(5)? It makes me feel like I have no control over the essential elements of my life. Again to compare, since it does such a terrific job to illuminate the absurdity: are school children customers of their public school? The victim of assault a customer of the police officer who stopped it in the act? Are you a customer of the earth or atmosphere when inhaling oxygen? Such framing of human relationships alienates all sense of humanity. It is Dehumanizing.

Is this a deliberate psychological trick to slowly ease the public into accepting an energy privatization program? Or simply a government and media that is so immersed in corporate commercial culture that they are ignorant of the effect of their words? Regardless, there is a clear problem.

In other news, hundreds of thousands of people in Quebec are still without power, as officials say they are working hard to restore energy for all those citizens and families who are in need.

1. With the exception of the self sufficient traditionalists, the old order Mennonites, and the 19th century Luddites of the world, lifestyles which I am not here to demean

2. The necessity of which in modern life is a whole other conversation.

4. For clarification, elasticity refers to the rate at which demand decreases in relation to a price increase. For example, if price increases slightly, resulting in much lower demand, then the thing in question is elastic, whereas if price goes up greatly, and demand stays the same, then it is inelastic. Food, Hydro, Energy and Shelter are very inelastic

3. To buy and consume is implied by customer

5. Although I wish not for this to be a strictly Marxist analysis, I certainly do take from him and Engels, as this phrase 'Callous Cash Payment' is quoted from the first chapter of the Communist Manifesto