The 2022 federal budget came down on April 7th, with a focus on addressing housing affordability, as well as climate change.
To help address the housing crisis, the Liberals plan to double new housing construction in the next decade, but they also stress that Canada needs to make these homes, and the entirety of its building stock, much greener.
Here are some of the highlights of their plan to do that.
Buildings and Homes
In the budget, the Liberals acknowledge that to meet their 2050 emissions targets, “the scale and pace of retrofitting buildings” needs to increase. It states:
“To this end, the federal government will develop a national net-zero by 2050 buildings strategy, working with provinces, territories, and other partners to accelerate both retrofits of existing buildings, and the construction of buildings to the highest zero carbon standards.”
It intends to allocate $150 million for a Green Buildings Strategy under the auspices of Natural Resources Canada. The money will go towards reforming existing building codes and adopting “performance-based national building codes,” as well as increasing building resilience and promoting sustainable building materials.
Affordable Housing
Get the Green Building Project Checklist
Use this handy checklist on your next project to keep track of all the ways you can make your home more energy-efficient and sustainable.
A further $200 million will go to NRCan for a Deep Retrofit Accelerator Initiative that will focus on accelerating deep retrofits for large projects and low-income affordable housing.
Retrofits for affordable housing are also addressed under an additional $485.5 million for the Canada Greener Homes Loan program, funds specifically geared towards low-income housing providers.
Greener Neighbourhoods
The budget also offers support for greener communities by promising $33.2 million for a pilot program to retrofit “up to six community housing neighbourhoods.”
The Greener Neighbourhoods Pilot Program will be modelled on the Energiesprong model of community-level decarbonization. In this model, homes across a community are retrofitted to net zero energy and financed through future savings on energy costs.
Technology and Innovation
Stressing the need for support for innovation in the construction industry, the budget proposes $183.2 million for research and development for greener building materials, more efficient retrofit processes, new building standards and other “low-carbon construction solutions.”
Air-source heat pumps got a nod in the budget, as well, with “accelerated tax deductions” for businesses who invest in air-source heat pumps, as well as the inclusion of heat pump manufacturers in the corporate and small business tax rate reduction currently enjoyed by manufacturers of other zero-emission technologies.
You can read the entirety of the budget, in all its 300-plus pages, here.
Image credit: Mansur Omar
