ST. JOHN’S - With higher heating bills expected this winter, retiree Donna Lawlor is cutting back on travel, groceries and entertainment to keep her budget on track. Lawlor is one of several thousand Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who heat their home with furnace oil. That group is facing a huge jump in bills this winter, with war in the middle east spiking fuel costs across Canada. “My biggest fear is keeping the oil in the house, you know, keeping up with the price of the oil and the gas.” On Oct. 3, furnace oil in St. John’s cost $2.16 per litre, almost a whole dollar more than it did on that same day in 2025. For Lawlor, that means increasing her monthly budget for heat from $300 to $400 and trying her best to save elsewhere. “I got to cut where I’m going,” she said. “I can’t go out and go run around like I used to, gas is so expensive.” “I got to say, I’m pretty good with money. Because if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be able to stay here and run this house.” The U.S. war with Iran that started in February brought a disruption in the global oil market, sending prices to a three-year high. Prices peaked in May, and following a short slide in June, are once again elevated just in time for Canadians to start turning their household furnaces back on for the winter. Oil heat is disproportionately popular in Quebec and Atlantic Canada, but remains highest on P.E.I. where more than half of homes relied on oil furnaces in 2020, according to Natural Resources Canada. A standard 900-litre oil tank is set to cost $1950 to fill, following Oct. 3 prices in St. John’s. Taxes will push that bill to about $2240. Those high bills and high tax shares have renewed calls for federal and provincial governments to remove more taxes from home heating products. “The Carney government did move a little bit on the federal excise tax, the effect of that was only to drop diesel prices four cents per litre,” said Dan MacTeague, head of the Canadians for Affordable Energy lobby group. “We’re flirting with three dollars a litre, not four cents.” A Home Heating Supplement program in Newfoundland and Labrador will give $500 back to Lawlor and other families — provided their income was less than $150,000 in 2025 — who use oil heat for their homes. The provincial government is also promising a 15 per cent break on electrical bills if the renegotiation of the controversial Churchill Falls hydroelectric deal reaches the finish line. “Our government continues to look at all options when it comes to affordability measures and will have more to share in the near future,” a spokesperson for the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Finance said in a statement.
