Environment Committee on Oct. 6th, 2026

[Eric St-Pierre, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm glad we're counting every second and every penny.

Mr. Haley, Efficiency Canada recently produced a report titled “How Federal Policy Can Transform Building Retrofits in Canada”. I'm wondering if you can provide a copy of that report to this committee and, in less than a minute, maybe summarize the key policy recommendations. Give us the very short version.

[Brendan Haley]

That report is saying we need to retrofit differently. We can't retrofit just one building at a time. We need to retrofit on a more industrial scale. It was looking at this retrofit accelerator and the greener neighbourhoods pilot project and what they've done.

Essentially, our findings were that, yes, they've created a pipeline of projects, but we also think you could have much clearer innovation-based goals. The way we think about those programs should not be about how many buildings we're retrofitting. It should be about whether we innovating and changing the way the markets work to begin with, and that's why we think there should be clear objectives along those lines.

[Eric St-Pierre, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Haley, Wednesday, October 7 is energy efficiency day, an important day to recognize the contributions of the energy efficiency sector in saving Canadians money, creating jobs and also reducing greenhouse gas emissions and pollution. I put a notice motion last year, M-19, to try to recognize this important day, and I recently sponsored a petition with 2,400 signatures, which calls for energy efficiency to be recognized as a nation-building priority.

Mr. Haley, I'm curious why Canadians should be excited to have energy efficiency day or celebrate this important milestone.

[Brendan Haley]

I think every day can be energy efficiency day if you want it to be.

To your point and to what you've mentioned in the House, I think that in this country we're talking about building a more sovereign, productive and resilient economy. Energy efficiency, I think, delivers all those things a lot quicker than a lot of more traditional megaprojects spread throughout the country, so a lot more equitably. I actually think that it, almost by definition, improves productivity for businesses and individual households, so I think it makes a lot of sense in this moment in time.

[Eric St-Pierre, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

That's great. I'm excited that you'll be celebrating energy efficiency day as well.

You mentioned earlier the Canada greener homes affordability program,, which this summer was refinanced, or there was an increase to, I think, $500 million or $300 million federally, spread across five provinces. In mid-September, our government also convened an investment summit in Toronto to think about the role of private capital and how we can leverage private capital.

I'm curious about the investment piece. How can our government take an approach to retrofit, say, a million homes through investments rather than through grants? Are there any low-interest loans or green bank models we should be considering? I'm curious if you could speak to that.

[Brendan Haley]

As I said, the old loan program, the greener homes loan program, did a lot of good for a lot of people, but it actually had no mechanism to really attract other types of private capital. It arguably crowded out some other types of private capital, because that zero per cent interest rate was competing against other retrofit loan products in the market.

That's why this green bank model I've been talking about is not the government providing retail finance to homeowners. It's the government saying that we have low-cost capital, and if you want to use our low-cost capital, we will do it for platforms that are doing particular things, protecting consumers and meeting climate goals. The benefit of that is that the platform can blend that capital with other forms of capital. It can be private capital, but a lot of the other capital in this area that would be interested is social impact capital, utility demand-side management programs that have energy savings objectives, and municipalities, so it can also be other forms of public or quasi-public capital.

[Eric St-Pierre, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

That's great. Thank you.

Mr. Lockhart, I'll throw in one last question.

On September 17, the Pembina Institute, along with some other organizations, signed a letter about a “double-double-double” approach to doubling electrification by 2050 and doubling energy efficiency by 2050.

Could you provide a copy of that letter to this committee? In 20 seconds, could you explain why we should double energy efficiency by 2050?

[Kevin Lockhart]

Absolutely, we can provide that copy.

The idea is that we can go down two paths. We can go down one path and double electricity supply, or we can go down another more effective and more efficient path and double energy productivity through electrification, putting many of those demand-side management or distributed resources within the communities where that energy is used.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Bonin, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Haley, we often hear about energy sobriety in Quebec, but not necessarily about energy efficiency. Do you think energy sobriety should be promoted more? Do you differentiate between energy sobriety and energy efficiency?

[Brendan Haley]

Yes, I think so. It goes back to the questioning about why some of these energy-saving projections are not met. We need technical energy efficiency like insulation, air sealing and heating systems, but we also need what I'd call people-based energy efficiency, which is about helping people. Some people don't know how to operate a thermostat. We need education on how to use a thermostat, how to manage a home and how to get feedback to customers. There's almost a behavioural aspect of helping people manage their own energy usage. That's one aspect that I would think about in energy sobriety.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Should there be an energy sobriety strategy? Should people be informed and educated on it? Should we set up programs or something else?

[Brendan Haley]

It can be difficult because of the way we often want to analyze or evaluate these things. It's a lot easier to evaluate something, like when you drop a piece of equipment on your foot and it hurts, than it is to evaluate a behavioural intervention.

There are ways to measure the behavioural intervention, but I'd go back to this idea of platforms that give consumers energy services. It doesn't have to be just that we install a heat pump and then we'll see you later. It can be that we are under a service agreement with you, and we are going to continue to give you tips and monitor your energy usage. If we see a spike, we might come in and talk about what is going on to see if there are problems in your home or in your building.

[Patrick Bonin, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Do you think Canada should have a carbon budget specific to the building sector, like the United Kingdom, with an action plan to meet its commitments, such as the 2030 targets, including a pathway to net zero?

[Brendan Haley]

I've written some reports about taking a more mission-oriented approach to how we do retrofits. Right now we tend to think about it one home at a time, whereas what we are really talking about is how we retrofit essentially the entire building stock up to a performance level. That's what we have to think about.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Thank you, Mr. Bonin.

We'll turn to Mr. Rowe for five minutes, please.

[Jonathan Rowe]

I should have had this done earlier.

Thank you very much.

My first question is for Mr. Dicaire.

You talked about how, years ago, they built homes quickly and cost-efficiently and never really focused on energy efficiency. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but if I remember correctly, you alluded to how we should be building more efficient homes now. I did some quick research, and it seems that high-efficiency homes cost around 15% more per home.

Our country is in a housing crisis, so I'll ask you a multiple-choice question. In scenario A, we could build 100 regular homes, and in scenario B, we could build 85 high-efficiency homes. What target should we go toward?

[Daniel Dicaire]

The first way I'd answer that particular question is by saying that OCH recently commissioned a specific total cost of building ownership study on our new developments, because we are planning on developing thousands of new units.

We found that the actual cost for a high-efficiency building is somewhere around 5% for 50% energy savings, which is where we are targeting our new developments. I would present our study in response to that stat, because we have found that as we are building right now—OCH has been delivering thousands of high-efficiency homes—we are doing it for a much lower cost. Our study confirms that.

Next, from OCH's point of view, we are developers, owners and operators of these affordable public assets for the long term. Therefore, the value of making that incremental 5% investment that we have seen comes back in dividends in the operating in the long term. We are also seeing it right now as a mechanism to access financing, whether it is through some of the mechanisms that Mr. Haley described or whether it is through the different federal programs we are accessing that are incentivizing affordable, accessible and energy-efficient homes.

[Jonathan Rowe]

I have a question for Mr. Haley.

I believe you mentioned a technique to correct contractors when they give the advice that heat pumps don't work in certain homes.

Would you be able to elaborate on your suggestion for that?

[Brendan Haley]

Thank you for the opportunity to nuance that point. There are stories about contractors saying a heat pump isn't going to work, and that's not great advice in lots of markets. In other markets, it is not very good advice to say, “I'm going to install a heat pump and it's going to save you money.” That's actually not the case in most places, like Alberta or Saskatchewan, for example.

Again, I think it gets to the question of whether you are making sure the consumers get the right expert advice for their particular needs and for their particular climate zone.

[Jonathan Rowe]

To clarify, you're not suggesting that we blacklist certain contractors for advising that heat pumps don't work in certain areas.

[Brendan Haley]

I'm saying that I think if contractors or other types of financing providers are not protecting consumers or are essentially not providing fair advice or fair deals to consumers, they can still continue to operate on the market, but I don't think they should be given the benefit of, say, low-cost federal government financing.

An example in Ontario that is quite prominent is that a lot of people are locked into hot water tank rentals that last for years and years and they can't get out of them. If they do need to get out of them, they have to pay thousands of dollars. That is not an example of supporting customers. I don't think the federal government should throw its weight behind that type of business model.

[Jonathan Rowe]

Last week when I was here, a witness suggested that our government should prioritize giving funding to people who aren't going to make those household changes anyway.

I believe what you're suggesting today is that we should, in fact, encourage people to make that transition when their furnace gives out and they need it.

Would you like to elaborate more on the importance of how we can succeed by using that urgency?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shannon Miedema]

Please give a quick answer.

[Brendan Haley]

It's an anecdotal stat, but we think 80% of heating systems are replaced on an emergency basis. If you're not tackling that, you're not really tackling the problem.