Environment Committee on Feb. 6th, 2018

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

I just have one other comment. I'm most familiar with Newfoundland and Labrador, and Muskrat Falls is a major hydroelectric project being completed in Labrador. In the province they keep talking about how the costs of that hydroelectricity that will be shipped to the island is going to increase dramatically in the next couple of years. There's major concern among seniors and low-income families in the province about how they will continue to live in their homes and use electricity as clean energy when the cost is going to increase by 30% or 40% for some of these people. That's a challenge. Obviously, getting up to code would mitigate some of that cost. However, unless the province is prepared to sign onto this kind of initiative and implement these codes and help people mitigate the electricity cost by providing incentives or improvements, it's a bit of a quandary.

[Frank DesRosiers]

As a general point, that would be true for Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario, and out west. I know that governments and citizens are concerned about rising energy costs. In that regard, efforts to invest smartly in energy efficiency is certainly a way to mitigate that, at least in part, so the bill doesn't increase in the same magnitude as the energy consumption.

[Sarah Stinson]

Many utilities across the country offer incentive programs as well that can help mitigate some of those costs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Just to be clear, the improvement there is pretty small. Ontario has done something, but not a lot.

You have about two minutes.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

I'm good. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Okay.

Mr. Fisher.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think it was Mr. DesRosiers who spoke earlier about the 2030 target and the fact that 75% of our housing stock is already there. We're speaking about retrofits, as Mr. Fast said. Some people will do energy retrofits because they're environmentalists and it's the right thing to do and the technology is there, but I think I'm safe in saying that the masses want a return on investment. With domestic solar panels, there was no really great return. With photovoltaic, there was no return based on cost. It's a chicken and egg thing.

Do you think that's where we can help, that it's the direction we should be looking at, to help the return on investment, to provide incentives to people to make these energy retrofits? If 75% of our housing stock is already built, and we need to hit those targets, unless you're seeing additional ways to accomplish those goals, the prices aren't going to come down that drastically, as they did with PV. PV prices came down probably 60% of 70% in the last eight or 10 years. Is that going to happen in this chicken and egg scenario? Do you see the costs of all of those energy retrofit technologies coming down? I'm looking at Frank, but do any of you have a comment on that?

[Frank DesRosiers]

I have three points to relay on this.

First, I think for any building owner, whether they own shopping malls, warehouses, or their homes or a condo, they need to be aware of how much energy they use. Where is it going? With some basic, easy apps or tools, you can already picture people out there using them more and more and being able to make comparisons. Having apps, for instance, to compare your house to your neighbour's would be revealing. If your consumption is way up, maybe something has to be done to your insulation or other things. I think this basic awareness about your energy usage would be tremendously useful to help those building owners and managers. They're getting more and more aware, because it's a big cost if you operate an office tower. If you can shave your costs there, that's great. It helps the bottom line.

Second, I think we need to equip them to drive from knowledge and awareness and data into action. How can we make it easy for them to pursue those affordable energy efficiency initiatives with a payback of one or two years? With lighting, for instance, the payback is typically less than a year.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

LED.

[Frank DesRosiers]

It's super attractive from a financial perspective. We need to make sure that Canadians act on it. We have a number of seven- and eight-year technologies out there that could be implemented very effectively and be attractive for folks to use. But we have to keep it simple, because people have their lives to live; they have kids to drive to soccer games, and energy efficiency is not the central focus of their life.

Third is to consider those who are out of range, as you have suggested, where the payback is too long to make it attractive from a financial perspective. We need to shave those costs and work relentlessly to do R and D and demo projects to bring down the cost so they become attractive. If people have an evolved conscience and are willing to pay extra money, that's terrific, but most Canadians will have to see a return in their pockets.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Sopuck.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I'm going to take a slightly different approach. Just as a preface, is your ultimate goal to basically retrofit all the older houses, and through building codes compel people to retrofit houses to improve energy efficiency before they can be resold?

You may have answered that earlier, but perhaps I missed it.

[Sarah Stinson]

We're very early in the code development process with respect to determining what an energy code for existing buildings would look like. That process is finally approved by the Canadian Commission on Building and Fire Codes through consultation with provinces and territories, and industry.

The stringency of that code, when it would apply—whether it's at time of sale or at the point of some major renovation—still needs to be determined. I think the point here is that the process for determining what that code will look like and how it will apply is consensus-based. It draws from experts from across the country, and it is done through a full public review and consultation.

Whether it would apply to everyone at the point of renovation depends on how the provinces and the territories adopt it, or whether they adapt it as well. However, because we are at a very early stage, many of those major points still need to be determined.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I just have a simple yes or no question. Is one of the goals of reducing energy to reduce CO2 emissions? It's a very simple question.

[Sarah Stinson]

Yes.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Okay. I'm going to use a personal example. In Manitoba, we're almost 100% hydro, and many of us, me included, heat with wood. My house is completely renewable and carbon neutral. Where would I fit in?

[Sarah Stinson]

With respect to the codes, the objective is to reduce GHG emissions, but it's also to reduce energy consumption. That frees up room on the grid, for example. It also reduces costs for homeowners, and it improves the quality of the living space so that it's healthier and more comfortable.

As a result, there are many benefits to improving the energy efficiency in your home, in addition to reducing GHGs.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Of course. My house is heated 100% with wood, and I view that as comfortable heat. When one looks at the statistics, wood is very rarely talked about as a heating fuel, but 6% of Canadian households use wood as their main heat. I just looked up the numbers. In the Maritimes and in eastern Canada, it's even higher. In Nova Scotia, for example, it's over 25%.

Wood heat is always given short shrift by the experts. Do you see a role for wood heat in Canada's energy future? With the collapse of much of Canada's paper industry, the newsprint industry in particular—some would argue that I'm not saying it correctly—we do have a surplus of wood. There's a lot of annual allowable cut out there that's not being taken. Where does wood heat fit in your world?

[Sarah Stinson]

Part of what we strive to do is to recognize that there are regional considerations and differences that need to be taken into account. Wood is a small proportion of any energy—

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

But in some areas it's very large—in my own area in particular. I think that looking at the country as a whole is misleading. If you drive through any small town that I represent or look at every farmhouse, in this wet weather, I know there's wood smoke coming out of every single home.

I have one last question—sorry to interrupt you. I happen to live in a log house. How would I retrofit a log house?

[Sarah Stinson]

I think you'd probably need a technical expert for that question.

[Philip Rizcallah]

Log homes are a bit of a challenge, but there are ways. There are technologies out there that you can incorporate in a new log home construction. Renovation may be a little different.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I should say.

[Philip Rizcallah]

We've been in communication with various log home developers. We're working with them, and we will continue to work with them.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Yes, I think that for log homes the thing to deal with them is with regard to the windows—with triple-paned windows—because logs themselves pose difficulties, as you know. I think looking at windows—triple-pane argon, all that kind of stuff—is probably the way to deal with log homes, because many thousands of people in Canada have log homes and they heat with wood. Just don't forget about us.