An hour or so ago in Toronto, Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn announced his government’s EcoEnergy Efficiency Initiative, a plan to give homeowners, industry, and business financial assistance to improve energy efficiency. The Tories will spend $300–million over four years on this.
The Liberals had a program up and running called Energuide. It was a plan to give homeowners only financial assistance to improve energy efficiency. The Liberals were set to spend $225–million over four years when they lost the government.
The Conservatives immediately cancelled Energuide even though the Environment Commissioner indicated that this was about the only Liberal program that was seemed to getting value for money so far as its stated goals went. The Environment Commissioner reported that, as of March, 2006, the Energuide program had helped retrofit 49,000 homes and achieved greenhouse gas emission reductions of abouut 700,000 tonnes.
Today, the Conservatives announced that in April, almost exactly a year after cancelling the Liberal plan to subsidize energy retrofits, Canadians can apply again for energy retrofit subsidies.
Here are the Liberals, Oct. 21, 2003: “Under this initiative, the average incentive to Canadians who make qualified energy-efficiency improvements to their homes is expected to be about $1,000.”
And here are the Conservatives, Jan. 21, 2007: “The average grant is expected to be more than $1,000 and will yield an average 30 percent reduction in energy use and costs.”