Natural Resources Committee on April 15th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Tanguay.

We'll go directly to questions from Mr. Regan.

We're going to be really pushing it even to get through the first round, so maybe we could have a six-minute round. The clerk has mentioned that the next committee would appreciate it if we ended all of our meetings at five to 11—and we do still have a short discussion of a couple of minutes at the end of the meeting today.

Go ahead, Mr. Regan.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I would like to thank all the witnesses who have come here today.

My initial questions are for the department officials then I will have questions for the other witnesses.

First of all, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask Mr. Corey and Ms. Buckley if they could provide the committee with a list of all the wind projects that have been funded by the department under these programs over the past four years, including the name of the company funded, the date the project was approved, the amount of funding, and a short description of the project, or is that available somewhere online you could direct us to?

[Mark Corey]

Yes, we can provide that.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much.

Let's go to the retrofit for homes program. This started in 2007. Is that correct?

The original budget is shown here. Let's go to the first year. It was started with $160 million over four years. How much was actually spent? Is this showing us that the $745 million was actually spent, or something else?

Up to March 31 of this year, can you tell us how much was spent?

[Carol Buckley]

The $745 million represents the four-year budget total. We have already paid $340 million in grants and have over $300 million left to dispense this year. I can't give you the exact spending as of March 31, including staff costs and administration costs, as I don't have it with me here, but we can certainly provide that to the committee afterwards.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

The last line of your slide show says that over $300 million of the $745 million will be disbursed this year. Looking at this, I guess one would interpret it to mean, okay, $745 million less $300 million would be $445 million left. But it's more than $300 million, so there is somewhat less than $445 million remaining.

Nonetheless, there's a lot left for this year, is what it sounds like.

[Carol Buckley]

There is an awful lot left for this year. It reflects the fact that over 600,000 Canadians have already had a pre-retrofit evaluation, and 300,000 Canadian households are currently eligible for a grant under the program.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Is there enough demand to extend the program beyond March 2011?

[Carol Buckley]

There is certainly ongoing demand.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

So there's no reason to believe there's not enough demand, considering what you've seen so far?

[Carol Buckley]

That's right. The demand has been steady since the inception of the program in 2007.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

If it was worth it then, why is it not worth it now?

[Carol Buckley]

Frankly, the review of the program on a regular basis, in terms of its expected uptake by homeowners, indicated to us at a certain point in time that there was enough demand from existing participants to use our remaining budget, and at that point in time we had to stop intake. As public servants, it's important for us to respect the budget allocations we have available to our programs, and we simply take the action in order to operate the program within its budget. Its budget has been increased on three separate occasions within the past three years, representing a nearly fivefold increase in the original budget.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

So why would you say it was overbudget? What was the cause of that?

[Carol Buckley]

Sorry, I hope I didn't say it was overbudget. I said we limited intake at the point in time when the existing participants would use the remaining funds. To continue the intake would have run the risk of exceeding our available budget.

We have not exceeded our available budget, but we took action at a point in time to be able to respect our budget.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

But you had a $300-million expansion to the program in last year's budget, and then you had to have a $285-million increment in December. That sounds to me like it was going overbudget, and you had to deal with it.

[Carol Buckley]

Well, as the demand for the program continued and we monitored it on a week-by-week basis, we could forecast what the demand for the program would be, and the government was able to make decisions to provide additional funds for the program up to the point this year when we limited the intake.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

So the reason the cost has gone beyond what was originally anticipated is that Canadians liked it—

[Carol Buckley]

Yes.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

—because Canadians took advantage of the program.

[Carol Buckley]

Absolutely.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

It seems to me that what you're telling us is that this is being killed because it was too effective.

[Carol Buckley]

Well, I'm not sure that's the way I would characterize it. I would say that the government has responded to the demand for the program on three separate occasions by increasing the budget to meet the demand, and at a point in time we are limiting the intake in order to respect the existing budget that we have.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

I appreciate that, and I've heard that, and I understand that you don't decide what budget you will get. But the fact of the matter is that I haven't really heard a reason, really, for ending the program at the end of the fiscal year we just started. I still haven't heard a good reason why it shouldn't go beyond that.

In talking about the program's partners, Mr. Tanguay mentioned how important it is that this mesh well with the provincial programs. My understanding is that the provincial partners are furious that this is going to end now, because they feel that the programs they have put into place have worked well with this. Unfortunately, they have seen examples from lots of governments in the past where the Government of Canada has come in and offered something and started something up and then said, “Okay, we're out, it's all yours now.” I'm sure they're not very happy about it in this case either; they're left holding the bag.

Let me ask you about the common measures you have listed on page 6 of the deck, such as reducing air leakage—that is, air sealing—and replacing heating systems, etc. Which of those measures tend to have the most benefit?

[Carol Buckley]

For reducing energy use, air sealing and insulation provide a very high return on investment in improving the efficiency of the home, as does replacing a heating system. So of the five common measures that I've listed, three of them—or four of them, if you count the two insulation measures—are really effective. Replacing windows and doors is popular for lots of reasons, but it's not one of the highest-impact measures from an energy perspective. It increases comfort by reducing drafts and, obviously, there's a cosmetic improvement when you get new windows and doors, but it doesn't have a really significant energy impact.