Environment Committee on Sept. 24th, 2026

[Berry Vrbanovic]

I'll turn to Ms. Cloutier for the specifics, but I will just make a general comment. I think it's fair to say that there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution for every municipality, of every size, in every corner of the country. There are very different circumstances in Canada's large urban centres than exist in the rural—

[Ellis Ross, Conservative, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

If I could, Mr. Mayor, as I'm running out of time, I'd say she wasn't talking about municipalities. She was talking about a homeowner, a household and their study. It was a small study, of course, but it showed that the energy retrofit didn't actually deliver the results as promised and that, possibly, insulative measures would have had a better bang for the buck for affordability, as well as for the tax dollar.

I know I'm out of time, Madam Chair. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Thank you. Mr. Ross.

Now, finally, we go to Mr. Greaves for five minutes, please.

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, colleagues.

I appreciate all the testimony today. It's been great to hear about this topic, and I very much appreciate all the expertise that's been brought to bear.

I might start with Mayor Vrbanovic. Thank you for joining us today, Mayor. Your experience at the municipal level is incredibly pertinent, because we know that municipalities will really have to do a lot of the delivery of some of these programs and play a critical role in connecting federal programs to individual Canadians.

I'd like to ask you, if I may, based on your experience with FCM—the green municipal fund, I should say, in this case—about the particular suitability of different kinds of retrofits for communities like mine. I come from Victoria, B.C., and I'm thinking here, in particular, about low-lying and coastal communities, where there are going to be particular kinds of engineering and technical aspects of the environment that might mitigate against certain types of retrofits and support others. I'm wondering whether you could speak to this in terms of solutions that are going to be a bit more tailored to certain kinds of environments and ecosystems.

[Berry Vrbanovic]

Thank you very much, Mr. Greaves. This is where I was trying to go with my response to the previous questions.

What's key here is to ensure that the programs offered to Canadians meet, really, some of the uniquenesses of a very vast country, with different challenges experienced in different parts of the country, both with the size of the communities and the regions—rural, northern, smaller communities and so on. As for implementing these programs, we've done so in a way that meets some of those uniquenesses. In Alberta, we've supported different-sized communities. In Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, we've looked at an energy poverty focus. The key is recognizing that flexibility is critical to reflect local realities.

I would ask Ms. Cloutier whether there's anything specific she might want to add that would add benefit to the question you just asked.

[Marieke Cloutier]

Thank you both.

We also created the residential resilience financing to pair with the community efficiency financing so we can have a look at energy efficiency and adaptation measures, outcomes or resilience financing and go beyond energy efficiency to include floods, wildfires, extreme heat or other resilience measures, because many measures can deliver both. If we think about insulation, air sealing or heat pumps, we're thinking about why homes shouldn't be renovated twice. Having a look at this all together would make a lot of sense, especially given the temperatures that we are seeing and a climate that's going to continue to change.

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Thank you very much for those responses.

I'll turn to Mr. Mueller for a moment, if I may.

Good afternoon, sir. Thank you for joining us.

I'm particularly interested in your experience in our province of British Columbia. I'd love to give you a chance to speak to what you would identify as additional measures you would suggest provinces like British Columbia, which has already made considerable progress towards supporting more energy-efficient new builds, adopt to grow or expand their own support for the kinds of retrofits that we've been discussing today. Is there anything you would point to that the province could be doing more of?

[Thomas Mueller]

Thank you for the question.

British Columbia is known to be ahead of the game in many instances.

What's very important, referring to what the two previous speakers said, is the flexibility of the approach.

If you live in the Lower Mainland, electrifying new builds is a very clear path forward as clean electricity becomes available, but we need higher levels of energy efficiency to be able to electrify. We also need flexibility in other parts of the province. For example, in colder climates in the northern part of the province, from our perspective, it's quite acceptable to have hybrid systems to make sure that people have adequate cooling and heating during the different seasons. Right now, heat pumps are the technology of choice, and they work very reliably to -15°C. They also work beyond that, but they need to work reliably. The technology is evolving. Flexibility is really important.

It's also important to align programs. I welcome the comments from the FCM and the GMF program. It's important that, across the province and the municipalities, the programs are aligned, because they need to complement each other. If they compete with each other and if it's fragmented, then you could potentially hinder adoption and you could change the outcomes you're looking for. Alignment in this day and age is important.

The climate is changing in western Canada. We not only have issues such as flooding—you're from Victoria, but we have the same here in the Lower Mainland and some low-lying areas, like Richmond—but we also have the overheating that we're now seeing in British Columbia, and quite significantly in the summer. A third one is wildfires, and this speaks to air quality.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Thank you, Mr. Mueller. Unfortunately, we are out of time.

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Thank you to all of our witnesses for your time and energy today. We really appreciate it.

Thank you, members.

The next meeting of our committee will be at 3:30 on Tuesday, October 6.

We will now adjourn. Thank you.