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The federal government is earning praise for its first low-income energy efficiency initiative in 20 years, after announcing this morning that Quebec, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island have signed on to the Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program (CGHAP).

Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson made the announcement this morning on the sidelines of the International Energy Agency’s Annual Global Conference on Energy Efficiency, which runs today and tomorrow in Montreal.

Manitoba was the first province to join the program last September.

Dabrusin said the $300-million transfer to the four provinces is meant to fund free energy affordability measures for renters as well as homeowners, including heat pumps, insulation, air sealing, and energy-efficient windows and doors—“all the types of upgrades that make a home function properly.” The improvements will be available “up front and at no cost,” she said, “so a family gets results without the runaround.”

Brendan Haley, senior director of policy strategy at Efficiency Canada, welcomed today’s announcement, but said it’s been a long time coming.

“This is the first time Canada has had a low-income energy efficiency program in 20 years,” he told The Energy Mix. “It has been a gap in climate policy and energy efficiency policy for a very long time. So the announcement is significant, in that Canada is finally providing energy efficiency services that low-income Canadians need at a national level.”

Dabrusin said an individual household will see its energy bill fall by as much as $1,700 under the program, and it won’t be just a one-time saving: “This is money that family continues to save every year.”

The program is meant to be flexible, allowing energy efficiency administrators in each of the four provinces to fund the measures they think will deliver the best results on energy poverty and affordability.

With energy now emerging as one of the biggest cost pressures for Canadian households, Dabrusin cited energy efficiency as one of the “most practical tools” to make life more affordable, adding that “the cheapest unit of energy is the one you don’t have to use.”

Hodgson said energy efficiency “means getting more out of the systems we already have. And it means good jobs,” with energy efficiency jobs generating $222 billion in net income in 2023. With CGHAP now extending to four new jurisdictions, he said, “low- to medium-income tenants and homeowners in those provinces can benefit from zero up-front-cost home retrofits.”

That momentum matters “because we know Canada’s economy is a pivotal moment,” navigating what IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol is calling the worst energy shock in modern history, Hodgson said. “Rising costs, growing electricity demand, climate change, and increasing geopolitical volatility are reshaping how Canadians live, work, and do business,” and “this uncertainty has made one thing incredibly clear: affordable and secure energy is not just essential for our quality of life. It’s fundamental to our economic sovereignty, our industrial competitiveness, and our prosperity and national security.”

Haley said the flexible, jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction program design was something Efficiency Canada had recommended.

“Federal money is really important for low-income energy efficiency because it’s more expensive from a utility perspective,” he explained, but “you do need the full cost of the upgrade to get the benefits of reducing energy poverty.” So “instead of a one-size-fits-all program which might have quite rigid rules for things like income cut-offs or the measures it supports, we suggested it would be better to allow provincial and territorial administrators to tailor and augment their existing programs.”

In different provinces, that could mean extending program eligibility to more households, working through an existing waiting list, adding heat pumps, or fuel switching.

Haley said two key questions at this point are whether every province and territory will join the program, and whether the federal government will extend the budget after today’s funding runs out. That will mean making it part of a bigger energy poverty strategy that sets goals and targets, gathers data, and sets up accountability mechanisms “to ensure that this program and other strategies to eliminate energy poverty are there over the next number of decades and don’t just go away.”

in British Columbia, Canada, Cities & Communities, Climate Equity & Justice, Energy Efficiency, Energy Poverty, International Agencies & Studies, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Quebec