Environment Committee on Feb. 8th, 2018

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

I want to go back to the CMHC piece and the 25%. I have a couple of questions.

You mentioned the 4,200 single homes that took advantage of that program, and the 181 projects and so on. When you do that program, does CMHC have a target for it? Is the target driven by dollars or by budget, or is there a targeted number that you have for it across the country? How do you allocate the money regionally across the country? Is it done proportionally? How is it done?

[Duncan Hill]

To my knowledge, we have no targets, and I can confirm that when we come back with the confirmation of the numbers on the MLI program. Thus far it's been application-based, so when the applications come in, we deal with them. We haven't run out of money yet to fund the program, so we've been taking applications as they come in.

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

The other part of that question is, in terms of promoting the program, who are your key partners? Are they the provincial governments or the municipalities, or is it the private sector? Who's involved in promoting that program?

[Duncan Hill]

If you're referring to the Green Home program and the multi-unit residential energy-efficient mortgage loan insurance refund program, the primary agent we've been working through is the mortgage loan insurance industry, through the lenders, the realtors, and the agents, largely because they're probably the first point of contact that a buyer would have when they're going to buy a new home or going to their bank to set up a loan for a renovation. It's a strategic decision, largely because the CMHC's commercial side deals with that industry.

I do know that an effort was going on later in 2017 and is going on in 2018 to try to broaden the base by spreading the knowledge around to the energy-efficient builders out there by saying, “By the way, if you buy my product, there are utility incentives and a CMHC incentive and there's an NRCan....” Whatever it is, the range of incentives could be presented at the point of purchase before they actually start thinking about finance, but by and large, to date we've been working with our partners in the mortgage loan insurance and lending industry.

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

Thank you very much for that.

For BOMA, when you did your presentation, on question number three, you said that “government should incentivize energy efficiency”.

Can you give me some specifics on that? Is that meant to be dollar-driven, or is it in terms of technology or training? What do you mean?

[Randal Froebelius]

It's an extension of what Benjamin was saying. Is there a way to tie this all together and add training to some of these more targeted kilowatt hour reductions and that type of thing? Is there a way that we can extend payback periods, as he also mentioned?

There are often programs that are limited in length, for example. Should there be an office of incentives, perhaps, that would make it easier and be more of a clearing house that owners could get access to? I think there's some work to do on how we administer these incentives, beyond just adding another incentive.

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

Thank you for that.

Madam Chair, all the other questions I had have been asked and answered, so I'll pass it on to your next speaker.

Thank you.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Madam Chair, I will occupy the rest of his time, if that's...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

You have two minutes.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you.

My question is for you, Mr. Bernhardt.

Thanks for the presentation. Are there mechanisms already available whereby Canadians can access passive house builders and net-zero builders? Is there a clearing house or somewhere where people can go to learn what their options are? I'm just not aware of that. Whether you're looking at large-scale buildings or on an individual house level, it doesn't seem to me that the information is out there for the consumer.

[Rob Bernhardt]

You're not alone in being unaware of that, of course. On our website, we provide that type of information, with listings and a project database. It is limited by our resources, but that type of information would be incredibly useful. These resources are available in almost every location. They're more common in some locations, but the services are more available than most people realize. The communication point you're raising is a good one. I think it's a good area to focus on. It's something that could be relatively easily remedied.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Does Passive House communicate in Quebec?

[Rob Bernhardt]

We do, but we started in the west, as BOMA did, so we're very new. We just became a proper national organization a little over a year ago. We're acquiring the bilingual staff and we have members in Quebec, but it's small, so it needs to build.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Is membership a limitation in some senses? A lot of construction happens by regular Joes just doing some building, so how does that...?

[Rob Bernhardt]

You need to buy a membership in our association, but the whole ethos behind Passive House is that it's not a proprietary branded standard. It's building science. It's open source. The energy model is an Excel spreadsheet. Anybody can buy it and anybody could do it, but it is very difficult to do without knowing what you're doing. The training is always an element.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thanks very much.

The committee is interested in having a very quick round of questions. I do need 15 minutes for committee business at the end. We have a couple of things we have to do. You have three minutes; we'll add two, so you'll get five, and then we'll do two and two and two, and then we'll call if off. Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Quach.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I'm not a regular member of the committee, so I apologize if my questions have already been asked. I'm replacing Linda Duncan, who left.

As I understand it, you are already working in the foreground. I had met Normand Mousseau, a researcher from the Université de Montréal, who works in the field of climate change. One of the things he told me was that there was a lack of coordination at the federal level, and even at the provincial level, in Quebec. He mentioned that several measures have not been included in federal policies, for example with respect to the use and reuse of local business materials for waste reclamation and construction in a circular economy. These measures are not enshrined in the building code standards that apply to the construction sector.

In your opinion, should the standards of the National Building Code be changed? What should be added with regard to the circular economy?

You talked a lot about passive heating, and we heard a lot about biomass or biofuel. Is this part of your initiatives? In order to reach our greenhouse gas reduction targets by 2030, should this be imposed by the federal government?

My question is for all of you.

[Randal Froebelius]

Am I first, or is Mr. Hill?

[Duncan Hill]

I muttered first, so I guess I'm up.

Good question on what you were referring to as the life-cycle energy use and life-cycle impact of buildings. CMHC has done studies of life-cycle impacts, environmental impacts, of highly energy-efficient buildings. We did them on our 10 EQuilibrium housing projects that I mentioned previously.

We are aware that there are significant impacts between the time you extract materials and put them in a home, and there are the life-cycle costs associated with trading out furnaces or the other things that were mentioned during the meeting. However, over the life cycle of a building, the operating costs and the energy impacts typically swamp the amount of energy and impact that go into the building materials.

It's not to say that we should ignore them, but it is to say that I think the codes currently are appropriately focused on operating costs and lowering operating costs. As we move toward 2030 with a pan-Canadian framework and with co-operation between the federal and the provincial-territorial governments on advancing the code toward net-zero-ready projects, we're going to have more and more room to look back and catch this other life-cycle element.

In my view, the current code focus is a good one. That's not to lose track of the life-cycle materials—we should continue to focus on that—but there's a lot of work to do on operating costs, first in existing buildings and then new buildings.

I don't know if any of the other panellists have other views on that.

[Rob Bernhardt]

I could perhaps offer just a few comments.

I would agree with Duncan that with the building stock we have and the standard of efficiency we are accustomed to building, the operating energy dwarfs the embodied energy within the building, but as we approach the level of efficiency that the codes are moving towards, that actually changes, so embodied energy becomes a big deal.

Our experience is that getting the operating energy down to the levels we need to get it to is difficult. It requires changing how we design and build, whereas the embodied energy is often a fairly simple decision of changing building materials, being careful about recycling, and that type of thing. Those steps could perhaps be done in conjunction with, but are not part of, Passive House, but in our experience, they're pretty simple things for developers to add to the mix.

[Randal Froebelius]

On the reuse of materials, I'd add that part of the LEED process when you're building a LEED building is that you have to commit to handling waste and recyclable materials in a certain way. I've done a lot of work on the construction side as well. I'd have to say that when LEED was launched, industry in Canada really stepped up and put in processes that address waste production from the construction process. It's been pretty amazing to watch that. When you think of everything that gets brought to a construction site, unpackaged, and thrown out, when you're doing it on a LEED basis, it really is incredible how much detail gets put into that process.

I'd also add that I know that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

You're going to have to cut it really short, because I'm trying to get the second round in.

[Randal Froebelius]

Okay.

I would just add that there are regional issues on the code side, and I think there are many differences across the country. Yesterday at NRCan we had a fellow from the Northwest Territories on the energy side. They face totally different issues up there. Costs are so incredible there. You might have different things. I think you have to be careful with that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Godin, go ahead for two minutes.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My first question is for the BOMA group.

In concluding your intervention, you said that it was better to restore buildings than to build new ones. I know that LEED certification, which competes with you, let's say it like that, applies a lot to new construction, whereas you are doing building restoration instead.

Have you measured the impact of waste and residues? You talked about the packaging of new construction, but the residues of materials used in the 1950s are probably less controlled and less environmentally friendly. This waste also has an impact. Have you demonstrated it? That's my question.