Natural Resources committee  Currently there are very few manufacturers of home appliances in Canada. I don't want to speak to some of the other HVAC industries, but particularly in the home appliance industry, the vast majority, like 95% plus, is probably being manufactured offshore.

Natural Resources committee  One of the things we would love to see in a paradigm shift is in terms of your question of how long do appliances last. It varies, depending on the typical appliances. You gave the refrigerator as an example but you can expect your refrigerator to last somewhere between 10 and 15

Natural Resources committee  Certainly, in terms of the manufacturing of appliances, we do use a lot of steel and aluminum in those appliances still, particularly the major appliances such as refrigerators and ranges. The cost of those materials has gone up, but it's a double whammy in the sense that a lot o

Natural Resources committee  One of the things you are starting to see is the introduction of what I call smart appliances. These appliances will be connected to the Internet, whether wirelessly or via wire. You'll be able to start to monitor the energy consumption. On your smart phone, you'll be able to do

Natural Resources committee  No, they do not. As a typical example, your external power supply for your laptop computer is capable of doing that, but things like your hand blenders or your toasters would not include a rectifier to be able to deal with that different voltage.

Natural Resources committee  Certainly it has had some impact on our industry. Some of the steel and aluminum being used in the construction of appliances in the United States comes from Canada, so that does have an impact. Equally, there is an impact here in Canada in the retaliatory tariffs that have been

Natural Resources committee  Not at this stage.

Natural Resources committee  Typically in terms—

Natural Resources committee  Testing these appliances is typically done against a standard, and that standard here in Canada is developed by the Canadian Standards Association. In the United States, it's done by the U.S. Department of Energy. The testing can be done by certified bodies like CSA, UL, Intertek

Natural Resources committee  These would be independent.

Natural Resources committee  I would hope not. Here in Canada, every appliance regulated for its energy consumption has to be tested and certified by a certification body.

Natural Resources committee  Right.

Natural Resources committee  One of the things I mentioned—and this is a very significant undertaking—is that here in North America, we are transitioning to a new refrigerant gas. We are currently using hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs. HFCs happen to be a pretty potent greenhouse gas. Their global warming potent

Natural Resources committee  It will be a positive bump. The products will be more efficient because of the use of these new refrigerants. That also depends very much on how the product is manufactured and its capacity, but in general you will see a bump. In terms of using these hydrocarbon gases, they have

Natural Resources committee  Each product has its own test procedure. One of the things we were finding—and I'll use an example—is that for the refrigerator test procedure, the U.S. had updated its test procedure. One thing they had done is lowered the set point of their refrigerators. Instead of testing a