July 17th, 2024 — Thunder Bay, Ontario — Natural Resources Canada

The Canada Green Buildings Strategy (CGBS) introduces the Government of Canada’s vision and next steps to improving energy efficiency in Canada’s homes and buildings, which will in turn cut energy bills for Canadians and support good jobs from coast to coast to coast. 

Today, The Honourable Patty Hajdu, Minister of Indigenous Services and Minister responsible for FedNor, on behalf of the Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, Canada’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, announced the First Green Building Strategy.

As part of the CGBS, the Government of Canada introduced the $800-million Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program (CGHAP) to help low-to-median-income Canadians, including tenants, upgrade their homes to save money on their energy bills and cut pollution. This new program will replace the Canada Greener Homes Grant (CGHG) with more comprehensive support for the installation of retrofits, at no charge to participating households. Using a ‘direct install’ model, where the retrofits are managed and delivered by third parties, this program could provide participating households with support up to four times more valuable than the former grant program. Recommended retrofits will be determined by experienced energy efficiency professionals, enabling each participant to receive what their home needs and making their homes more affordable and comfortable.  

The CGHAP builds on the progress made to date through the CGHG, which has already helped 240,000 homeowners install heat pumps, windows and doors, and insulation through an average grant of $4,400 per household. Each year a CGHG household will save an average of nearly $400 on their energy bills and reduce their emissions by 1.18 tonnes of CO2. Over the next couple of years, the CGHG will continue to help hundreds of thousands more program participants complete retrofit projects that will further reduce emissions and energy consumption.

In addition to CGHAP, the Oil to Heat Pump Affordability Program and the Canada Greener Homes Loan will continue to help Canadians reduce their home energy costs and make the switch to electric heat pumps. To date, nearly 160,000 heat pumps installations have been supported by federal funding. The impact of this momentum is particularly important for households that are fully heating with oil, as they could save from $1,500 to $4,500 per year on their home energy bills by switching to a cold climate electric heat pump.  

The Government of Canada has also committed to introducing a regulatory framework to phase out the installation of expensive and polluting oil heating systems in new construction, as early as 2028. This phase-out would include necessary exclusions for regions with insufficient access to the electricity grid and where standby back-up heating fuel is required.

The Government of Canada is also greening its own infrastructure, with the goal of fully meeting the energy needs of federal buildings with clean energy sources, by eliminating the use of fossil fuels for space and water heating where possible and building net-zero from the start.

To help develop a sustainable foundation for years to come, the Government of Canada’s new Buy Clean approach will build on Canada’s clean manufacturing advantage. The approach supports a shift to low-carbon materials and design through federal construction procurements and public infrastructure asset investments, which reduces the full life cycle of emissions from building materials and projects and fosters manufacturing competitiveness and jobs.

Canadians want to live in sustainable communities: places with clean air, affordable homes and good jobs. The Government of Canada’s investments in greening buildings and switching from fossil fuels to clean electricity are key to lowering GHG emissions while supporting a strong and affordable economy.