Opening heating bills caused a shiver down the spine of many homeowners this winter and now both the South Okanagan-West Kootenay MP and the Canadian Home Builders’ Association are lobbying for change.
Richard Cannings, area MP and NDP Natural Resources critic, has tabled a motion calling on the Liberal government to re-introduce the EcoENERGY Home Retrofit program that helped Canadians retrofit their homes and apartments to make them more efficient, while lowering energy bills.
“EcoENERGY was a real win-win-win for Canadians,” said Cannings. “In these times when the Prime Minister has said that the economy needs a boost, this program is a perfect opportunity to help Canadians make their homes more efficient while creating well-paying jobs for hard working tradespeople in South Okanagan-West Kootenay and across Canada.”
Cannings said the former program saw participating households save on average $700 per year per $2,000 spent on utilities, reduced energy consumption by over 20 per cent and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by three tonnes per house.
CHBA president Bob Finnigan is no stranger to hearing the grumblings of Canadians over the rising costs of heating. The retrofit program is one of the pillars the CHBA have been advocating for the federal government to re-instate.
“A lot of these people that are scared to open their bills aren’t new homeowners. We only build one per cent of new homes a year, 99 per cent of homes exist. If you go back 15 years you have 85 per cent of homes in this country that have quite a different level of energy efficiency and those are the people looking at their bill shocked,” said Finnigan.
Growing up in a 1950s bungalow Finnigan said he knew it was cold out when he could see the snow blowing under the door and hear the wind coming through the outlets in the kitchen. By virtue of new windows, insulation and a few other fixes many older houses can be brought up to a higher level of efficiency.
“If the government wants to invest dollars, you can get a four to seven time return by putting it back into the pre-1985 market and providing high efficiency for them. And that can be done by this program which we are strongly advocating to get into this budget,” said Finnigan.
By only providing rebates to those who can show receipts, Finnigan said it upholds a greater standard and will provide jobs to more tradespeople.
“By making people show their receipts in order to get the rebate, it means they have good tradespeople doing the work. It takes care of the underground economy and provides jobs to the people who are paying the right amount of taxes. For the government it is really not that big of a cost because when they get the GST or HST, depending on the province, from a legit contractor it makes up for the rebate. That money right now is disappearing with fly-by-night renovators. If you can lift everything above the table, everyone benefits,” said Finnigan.