Environment Committee on Sept. 24th, 2026

[Maya Papineau]

I would say that the groups we've been able to get data from tend to be energy utilities. I will admit that we've targeted utilities because they have very large population bases, and we need large samples to get the optimal mix of what is the best combination of retrofits to recommend to any given house.

It's not for lack of interest. If you were to reach out and email me to tell me there's a first nation that's interested in working with me, I'd be happy to do so.

[Wade Grant, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I was lucky enough to go to the central coast of British Columbia this past winter. There's a first nation that's taken it upon themselves to.... Any new builds have heat pumps and those types of things, and they retrofit them as well, but they don't have the access to electricity, as you said. A lot of them have turned to rooftop solar and whatnot. What data do you have on that as part of this whole retrofit aspect?

[Maya Papineau]

For rooftop solar in the community of Medicine Hat, we did request data on it. There were not many solar adopters. We had too small a sample to evaluate the impact of solar. Again, that speaks to the importance of getting access to big datasets. We tried to analyze heat pump adoptions under ecoENERGY in Medicine Hat, and only three people had adopted a heat pump. Once again, we did not have enough data to assess the returns on heat pump adoption. It really is a question about data.

[Wade Grant, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

This is probably my last question, as I think I have only a minute left. How should governments evaluate the cost-effectiveness of retrofits, of which benefits include not only energy savings but also emissions reductions, improved comfort, health benefits and increased resilience?

[Maya Papineau]

All of those are part of the social benefits of energy retrofits. Once again, a well-designed RCT can identify all these benefits. It's really about ex ante, before deploying the program, setting up an evaluation mechanism where you can identify those benefits.

I'm really glad you mentioned comfort, because comfort is one element or benefit of retrofits that I'm really interested in measuring. I've just never gotten the traction from any partners to work on that.

[Wade Grant, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Well, maybe once you come to some first nations and go to an elder's house, you'll see the comfort they may have by retrofitting their home.

I thank you for your testimony. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Thank you very much, Mr. Grant.

That concludes our first hour.

Thank you to our witnesses for giving us both time and energy today.

We will suspend briefly to switch to our next panel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

We will resume, please and thank you, for our next hour of witness testimony for the energy efficiency study.

I'd like to welcome the witnesses we have with us this afternoon.

We have Marieke Cloutier, senior director of programs for the green municipal fund. We also have the mayor of Kitchener, Berry Vrbanovic, online. They are representing the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

We also have Thomas Mueller, the president and chief executive officer of the Canada Green Building Council.

Welcome to you all. Thanks for being with us today.

The witnesses will have five minutes each for an opening statement. I do have a little reminder when you're at a minute and when your time is up just to help you along.

We will begin with Ms. Cloutier. The floor is yours for five minutes.

[Marieke Cloutier, Senior Director, Programs - Green Municipal Fund, Federation of Canadian Municipalities]

Thank you very much.

I will pass it on to our green municipal fund council chair, Berry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Okay, thank you.

[Marieke Cloutier]

Thank you, Shannon.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Go ahead, please.

[Berry Vrbanovic, Mayor of Kitchener, Federation of Canadian Municipalities]

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and committee members.

I'm Berry Vrbanovic, mayor of Kitchener and chair of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities green municipal fund council. I'm joined by Marieke Cloutier, the senior director of programs at GMF.

Thank you for inviting us to talk about home energy retrofits and climate adaptation programs.

This study is timely as Canada works to strengthen its electricity system, improve energy efficiency, protect households from rising costs and make homes more affordable and comfortable. For 26 years, GMF has partnered with the Government of Canada to turn national goals into local results across the country. Our model pairs funding with training and capacity building so that municipalities can move climate projects from ideas to action.

In partnership with the federal government, GMF delivers clear results. Since 2000, GMF-supported projects have added $5.6 billion to Canada's GDP, $3.1 billion in wages and salaries and about 60,000 person-years of employment, while avoiding 3.02 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions and helping protect communities from extreme weather.

GMF's model also helps make federal funds go further. Since 2019, GMF has helped mobilize more than $270 million in private capital, including more than $60 million for home retrofits.

On retrofits, municipalities tell us the same thing: People want to retrofit their homes, but upfront costs are a barrier. GMF's community efficiency financing initiative and the property assessed clean energy model, or PACE, were designed to address that barrier. PACE lets homeowners pay for eligible upgrades over time, through a charge tied to the property, rather than paying the full costs up front. This makes retrofits more affordable and accessible, strengthens homeowner demand and helps municipalities design programs that meet people where they are.

Just as importantly, PACE helps build durable local retrofit markets. With GMF support, PACE-style financing has launched in more than 40 municipalities across eight provinces. The anticipated results are significant, with more than 16,000 homes retrofitted, about 590,000 gigajoules in annual energy savings, more than 3,800 jobs created and average household energy savings of about 30%.

I see that impact first-hand in portions of the region of Waterloo, where a GMF-funded program recently launched and has been met with enthusiasm from residents looking for practical support.

Demand for GMF financing is strong. We are on track to use the full $300-million federal investment, and we already have requests from communities that we cannot fulfill. The demand is also growing beyond energy efficiency as homeowners and municipalities look for practical ways to protect homes from flooding, heat, wildfire smoke and other extreme weather. This is why GMF recently launched residential resilience financing through our local leadership for climate adaptation program, Canada's first initiative to combine home energy retrofits with climate adaptation upgrades. It builds on municipal PACE programs by making resilience improvements alongside energy upgrades while helping municipalities work with insurers so homeowners can maintain insurability and avoid cost increases. Homeowners are eager and municipalities of all sizes are ready to use these models.

The green municipal fund, or GMF, is poised to scale up proven local energy retrofits. Programs are already working, municipal partners are ready and communities want support.

Scaling GMF would build on a model that already works alongside other federal retrofit programs. It would translate national ambition into faster local delivery, using municipal expertise, practical financing tools and trusted community partners to reach households.

Stable financing and long-term delivery capacity can also help avoid boom-and-bust cycles by strengthening contractor networks, financing partnerships and homeowner awareness over time. This capacity can help to grow the retrofit market, as well as to scale work beyond energy efficiency into home resilience and, over time, commercial and multiresidential buildings.

In conclusion, the federal government has made a bold and commendable commitment to retrofit one million homes. Meeting this ambition will require proven delivery partners with local reach, practical experience and a track record of results. The demand exists. The local delivery capacity exists. The model is proven, and GMF is ready to help Canada scale.

Thank you to the environment committee for undertaking this important study. I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Thank you very much, Mayor Vrbanovic.

We now go to Mr. Mueller for five minutes, please.

[Thomas Mueller, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Green Building Council]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a few introductory comments.

My name is Thomas Mueller. I'm the president and CEO of the Canada Green Building Council. We represent 700 companies, large companies, across the building sector. We work not only with industry but also with labour partners across Canada in the green building sector. The sector has a significant size. In 2024, it represented $81 billion in GDP and supported over half a million full-time, skilled jobs in that industry. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the committee for its study on home energy retrofits. It's an important topic.

Our central message is this: Canada does not only need more homes; we need better-performing homes. Energy efficient, healthy and resilient homes reduce utility costs and keep Canadians safe. Today I will focus on apartment buildings, homes for millions of Canadians, and how better performance is essential to long-term housing affordability.

All housing projects, new builds and retrofits, must prioritize quality and performance. The latest government data suggests that Canada could warm up to 5°C by the end of the century. As shown by increases in deaths caused by extreme heat events—and I live in British Columbia, where we had 600 people pass away during the heat dome a few years back—buildings must improve if they are to protect Canadians in a warm and unpredictable climate.

Beyond safeguarding Canadians from climate change, building performance also impacts their pocketbooks. Housing affordability isn't just about the purchase price, rent or mortgage. It's also about utility bills, repairs and maintenance costs. These expenses add up. Our recent commissioned poll shows that 60% of Canadians feel their energy bill is at least a moderate financial burden. Our other studies show that operating savings between 37% and 59% are possible for energy-efficient buildings.

Tackling public health and utility costs means prioritizing Canada's vast existing building stock. Retrofitting these buildings will be critical if we are to meet the nation's needs for quality housing for Canadians, in addition to our climate change objectives. Our success in this area will require a shift in thinking from existing buildings as a cost burden to existing buildings as high-impact investments that lower operating costs, ensure utility savings, protect tenants and preserve housing assets for decades. An efficient building stock is also an important part of our competitive economy.

To address the urgency and unlock the benefits of high-performing retrofits, we have five recommendations.

First, the government should embed energy performance requirements into affordable and rental housing investments, recognizing that affordability includes monthly costs such as utilities. There is clear support for this, as 88% of Canadians want efficiency standards in affordable housing projects.

Second, we recommend that the federal policy should support retrofit pathways that align with capital budgets and equipment replacement cycles by owners. This pragmatic approach allows owners to reduce energy use and emissions more affordably, and combines public and private investment into retrofits.

Our third recommendation is for stable, predictable multi-year retrofit funding. Building projects can take years to get off the ground. Short program windows and changing eligibility rules make it difficult to plan and invest, and quite frankly, it discourages small and medium-sized businesses and owners from pursuing retrofits.

The fourth recommendation is that government provide accessible financing for home retrofits, and this needs to be paired with consistent recognized approaches to measuring and verifying building performance. Third party verification of performance is important in ensuring that the performance built into the retrofit is actually achieved and maintained over time. Performance is key to achieving affordability. Savings help to repay loans that have been made by governments and others, as well as to lower utility bills for the occupants.

Finally, we recommend a coherent whole-of-government approach to affordable housing, which means having national strategies and programs that reinforce one another through consistent, stackable performance requirements and expectations for more streamlined, efficient and predictable delivery.

Home retrofits are not only a climate-change strategy; they're also an affordability, public health, equity and resiliency strategy.

Canada needs more homes, but it also needs homes that are safe, comfortable and functional for decades to come.

Thank you. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Thank you very much, Mr. Mueller.

We'll now go to questions. We'll begin with the Conservatives and Mr. Bexte for six minutes, please.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for joining us today. I appreciate your attendance and hope we will learn a lot.

Wow. Where to start?

Mr. Mueller, you were speaking about energy performance. I was wondering if you could comment a bit, from the residential experience, on how you propose to measure it.

[Thomas Mueller]

Just to be clear, your question is on how to measure approved energy performance in buildings.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Yes. That's from a residential perspective and in terms of your first point about priority for what needs to be done.

[Thomas Mueller]

There are two components of it.

Once the retrofit or the new construction is complete, for example, there's testing you do in terms of how airtight the building would be, because airtightness and insulation reduce demand for energy. This would be part of the construction process, in addition to the skills the builder needs to make those changes.

After the fact, a number of metrics are then used to verify the energy performance of the building. Energy efficiency—the amount of energy, both electricity and natural gas—is measured vis-à-vis established standards. You can benchmark that the performances are actually what the level of performance is—

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

I'm going to interrupt a bit.

Mr. Mueller, maybe I didn't ask the question well. The entire system we're looking at has a bunch of public dollars and a bunch of private dollars going in to motivate certain behaviours and choices to be made.

The value proposition, or the cost-benefit analysis, needs to be positive in order for us to justify continuing any particular program in any particular type of home, dwelling, or commercial or multi-family residential thing. We need to measure that. How do we measure the efficiency of the dollars, which are public dollars, spent in this program?

[Thomas Mueller]

On the efficiency of public dollars, I can't.... How the government measures its efficiency in how they spend their dollars is hard for me to assess, but I can tell you that what matters to building owners and to occupants is how much they pay for energy, how much they pay for maintenance and how much they pay for retrofit.

If you retrofit a building.... You have a lot of existing building stock that's highly inefficient and uses more energy than it needs to use. For investment in this, there are very clear business model projects that have been retrofitted across the country. I'm talking specifically about multi-unit residential buildings in which owners have invested and retrofitted to provide them with very clear returns. If you would like to see some of these case studies, we'd be happy to share them with you.

I cannot speak to the efficiency of how the government spends its dollars, but I know the investments reduce the results in terms of reduced operating costs and reduced utility costs for the occupants.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

You brought up a good point, Mr. Mueller, in that I don't think the government has a very good measure of the efficiency of the dollars that they spend either. This goes for any government in history, present company not exempted.

You bring up a good point, and what I'm trying to get at is that without measuring things, you can't improve them. This is a fairly fundamental notion of systems engineering, but is the biggest bang for the buck multi-unit installations like multi-family dwellings and not individual detached dwellings? Do you understand what I'm saying?

Without making those comparisons from an analytical point of view, you're going to run down the rabbit hole with a limited amount of treasure and not get the results that we need. Couple that with some previous testimony we've had in which a previous witness warned of the possibility of costs actually going up for residential retrofit participants if the grid and the systems around that installation don't match on scale.

If the grid doesn't scale at the same rate as the adoption, and there is higher electricity consumption because of changes from gas to electricity, for example, it puts higher demands on the grid that the grid can't compensate for, and the actual cost to the homeowner goes up. How do you drive analytical decisions then?

[Thomas Mueller]

You raise a good point. When we talk about electrification of retrofits, the investment the government has made in the national electricity strategy and the role of it is very important because we need to increase our supply of clean electricity to electrify buildings, transportation and some industry. I think that is clear.

The fact is right now you can retrofit any home to a high level of energy performance with the energy sources, the technology and the skills we have across the country. In some areas, it might be more challenging, but in most of the country, you can do that.

In multi-unit residential buildings, it's the economy of scale. The difference between a homeowner and the owner of a multi-unit residential building is that there's usually an ownership model. You have a property manager, and if the owner makes an investment, the operator and the property manager make sure that the benefits of the investment are realized so that the owner can reap the returns.

In a single-family home, that's—

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

We're out of time, but I don't think we really resolved the cost impact to the homeowner.

Thank you.