The decisions were made by ministers in 2006 on how to allocate this funding suite called ecoENERGY efficiency. The decisions made at the time were to put incentives into existing homes to improve their efficiency.
The decision was not made by ministers to provide incentives for new homes, for new energy efficient homes. Some of the thinking around that has to do with the fact that only under 2% of homes are built new every year. The stock of 10 million homes is in need of improvement if we are interested in reducing the energy use of our housing stock and in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions associated with our housing stock.
If you're looking at making an intervention in the economy, there are a lot more homes that need retrofit every year than there are homes that are built new every year. So the decision at the time was to put the incentive money towards improving the efficiency of the existing stock rather than towards improving the efficiency of the new stock.
If I might, Mr. Chair, just to add to that, we have excellent instruments in place for new buildings to improve their efficiency. We have the EnerGuide rating system for new homes, which is increasing the efficiency of new homes through programs such as R-2000 and Energy Star. The efficiency of the new home is higher than it was previously.