Riders rent reduction a 'contractual matter', no legal threat: Reynolds
12h ago
The $1.33M rent reduction comes from what the club owed during seasons impacted by the pandemic.
Since the COVID-19 outbreak hit Saskatchewan in the middle of March, many people have developed new routines of business, education and entertainment from their own homes.
As a result, utilities like power, Internet and water are reflecting new trends.
As people of all ages go online more to connect to work, family and friends, SaskTel has reported major increases across all Internet and wireless services.
Traffic on SaskTel’s fusion Internet network has shown a 46 per cent increase in demand. Meanwhile, wireless data traffic has increased by 34 per cent and fibre optic and DSL Internet service use has jumped by 16 per cent.
Scott McGregor, media relations consultant for SaskPower, said power use has shown a downward trend.
“We’ve actually seen about a 6.7 per cent decrease in the peak load requirements compared to March and April of last year, and this is largely due to a decreased demand from our commercial and industrial customers,” McGregor explained.
McGregor said there appears to be a small increase in power use on the residential side, perhaps due to more people staying home. But without full deployment of smart meters, he said it’s hard to get an exact read on how much more power people are using at home.
He predicts some people may see an increase on their power bills just due to being home and using electronics for work or entertainment all day.
McGregor’s advice on saving power is to keep the lights off and take more advantage of natural light in the day, and to use smaller appliances like toasters instead of ovens to cook when you can.
Kurtis Doney is the director of water, waste and environment with the City of Regina. He said there has been a small increase in residential water use this spring compared to last year, but there has been a very substantial decline in commercial water use.
“From April 2019 to April 2020, we saw approximately a 40 per cent drop in water usage in the commercial category,” Doney said.
On the residential side, Doney explained water usage is very dependent on the weather, with people watering their lawns in dry years rather than any extra activity inside the house. But people being home more doesn’t appear to have made any significant difference in water use so far.