Natural Resources committee  Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you to the chair and the committee for inviting Natural Resources Canada to come to address you today about integrated community energy systems. I am very happy to appear here with colleagues from the private sector who also share an interest in this topic.

Environment committee  Yes, we've been analyzing the impact of various regulations for many months in advance of the October release of Bill C-30. We have also continued to refine those estimates, as our consultations with stakeholders continue. So that work goes back a fair ways, predating the amendment proposal for Bill C-30.

Environment committee  I'll speak to that. The ecoENERGY retrofit program for homes, which was announced on January 21, 2007, is not associated with Bill C-30. It is not a regulatory measure; it's an incentive program. It received approval through a separate process. We have done analysis around its benefits and the costs, but it's not associated with Bill C-30.

Environment committee  I think Environment Canada has information, where they have collected expected reductions across all measures of the plan, across all departments. They have been speaking to that, and earlier they said this contributed to the 20% reduction in emissions in 2020. So they would have taken the expected impacts of the energy efficiency retrofit program, and other energy efficiency programs and non-energy efficiency programs, into that estimate, that's correct.

Environment committee  Yes, that would include the regulatory program for energy efficient products, for energy-using products, as well as all the other energy efficiency programs.

Environment committee  Yes.

Environment committee  We've been working on improving the efficiency of lighting with a multi-stakeholder group, including provinces, territories, utilities, and industry, for a year at least. It has always been our intention, as part of the regulatory package that was part of Bill C-30, to improve lighting technologies through standards.

Natural Resources committee  The numbers on this slide represent not a government analysis but an analysis that was done by highly respected energy researchers and modellers in the economy on behalf of all jurisdictions of Canada, a work group that was looking at demand-side management potential. We didn't give them any instructions to be reserved or timid or aggressive or bold.

Natural Resources committee  Certainly. It's a public study, and I can make it available to the committee.

Natural Resources committee  First up, I'd say these aren't savings that we're planning. This was a study that was undertaken for a federal-provincial-territorial work group. It's based on whether certain actions are taken across the economy. It's based on the technological opportunities and instruments that are available to governments.

Natural Resources committee  For the first part, we do have information, we work with the industry, and we have direct financial incentives to support solar and biomass heating in different applications in both of our programs. So it's definitely something we support through financial incentives, but just as important, we work on standards and information and training to increase familiarity for consumers potentially able to choose these technologies, but who may not have the same level of comfort with these as they do with regular technologies that these work or are available.

Natural Resources committee  I will reply in English in order to be clearer. To answer the first question, how do you organize a transition, we had a fairly major transition from a slate of 16 energy efficiency programs to four or five in industrial buildings, residential, and the industrial and transportation sector.

Natural Resources committee  I will repeat my answer. He said that the other energy sources, that account for 26%, are sources of energy other than electricity, for instance oil, gas and others. We are talking about greenhouse gases produced by other forms of energy.

Natural Resources committee  Yes.

Natural Resources committee  I don't have those statistics in my head, but we can obviously provide them for you. I can answer the question more anecdotally by saying that if we make international comparisons of Canadian practices to practices in other countries, we do see quite significant evidence of more conservationist behaviour, whether it's in the size or the frequency of the multiplicity of electricity uses in a home.