Canadian Feds End Home Energy Retrofit Program

Unfortunately, this wasn't PM Harper's idea of an April Fool's day joke: On Thursday it was announced that the Federal Home Energy Retrofit program has been suspended. Over the last three years, home owners who submitted to an energy audit and completed the necessary changes could earn up to $5000 in rebates and credits. Reports suggest that this is a money saving move as the program was three times more popular than initially expected. This suspension means the program ended about a year earlier than scheduled.

I could be the first to cry sour grapes as I did the initial audit but failed to complete the work in my 18-month window nor did I know I could have applied for an extension, but I still think the program was valuable enough to motivate a lot of people to move to a greener position. I fear though that people who would have counted on this rebate or could only afford to do upgrades when the rebates were available, will now be forced to wait or simply not do the upgrades. This results in wasted energy, higher costs, higher GHG emissions and more waste.

Bottomline: Bone head move. This program was an economic stimulus targeted specifically at smart, green renovations.

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