Bankrupt Oil Company Leaves Maritime Customers in a Precarious Situation
The trucks responsible for transporting fuel throughout Halifax are currently inactive, parked behind the Maritime Fuels building in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. The company, headquartered in Nova Scotia, filed for bankruptcy protection last week.
“There are thousands of Nova Scotians that have paid for what they thought was going to be their heat source for the winter and now they’re not going to be able to get that,” says Nova Scotia Liberal leader Zach Churchill.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a licensed insolvency trustee, has been assigned the responsibility of managing the affairs with creditors following the bankruptcy filing of Maritime Fuels.
Churchill argues that this development doesn’t provide immediate relief for individuals in need of heating their homes. He is urging the government to make the Home Heating Assistance Rebate Program (HARP) accessible to those who have incurred financial losses.
“The current heating assistance rebate program is $600,” Churchill says. “We’ve asked the government to increase that to $1,000, which it was last year, and if they did that we certainly think this would help the bulk of the people that have been impacted by maritime fuels going bankrupt.”
To be eligible for HARP, an individual living alone must have a net income of $55,000 or less or a combined household income of $75,000 or less. Additionally, eligibility extends to those receiving income assistance or the guaranteed income supplement.
They advise affected customers to cancel any prepayments and register with the insolvency trustee to be listed as a creditor. Through this process, individuals will be informed about how the company’s debts are being addressed.
Related Posts
“Nova Scotians that are going to struggle to get through the winter and many of them might not be able to afford to heat their homes now and we certainly think that the government needs to step up in a meaningful way to help these folks deal with what’s going to be a challenging winter,” Churchill says.
This situation has the potential to leave some individuals with depleted oil tanks and financial difficulties.
