Urban Climate Leadership Reaction to Prime Minister Carney’s Canada’s Home Retrofit Announcement
October 8, 2026 | Ottawa - Urban Climate Leadership celebrates the Government of Canada’s announcement to support one million home retrofits. Investing in heat pumps and building improvements can lower energy costs, reduce emissions and provide cooling that protects people during extreme heat. Simplifying access to rebates, strengthening financing for rental buildings and renewing the Deep Retrofit Accelerator Initiative are welcome steps toward making these benefits available to more Canadians.
The federal government’s home retrofit announcement is an important step in the right direction to building a Canadian retrofit industry, supporting skilled trades, domestic supply chains and technologies suited to our housing stock. Realizing that potential will require connecting rebates, financing, delivery support and workforce development into a coherent national strategy. Success should be measured by the buildings transformed, the industrial capacity developed and whether Canadians gain safer, healthier and more affordable homes.
Through Keep It Cool, UCL has been working with housing providers, governments, utilities, financial institutions and industry to address the obstacles to installing heat pumps in older low-rise apartments, condos and co-ops. We are encouraged to see support for multi-unit residential buildings alongside homeowner rebates. The next step is to ensure that the design and delivery of these programs reach vulnerable Canadians, people and buildings that are too often overlooked.
The announcement includes building-level financing. As part of Keep it Cool, we continue to advocate for moving beyond a model that emphasizes individual applications and counting housing units, which falls short of the coordinated building approach needed to drive economic development. Older apartments, condos and co-ops often share heating systems, electrical infrastructure and decision-making processes. Retrofitting them efficiently requires coordinated investment across an entire building. Bringing similar buildings together into portfolios would allow governments, housing providers, utilities and investors to plan at scale, standardize procurement and reduce costs. A predictable pipeline of projects would give Canadian manufacturers confidence to invest, contractors confidence to expand and training institutions a clearer basis for developing the workforce.
More favourable financing is essential, but financing alone will not make every retrofit affordable. Many older buildings need electrical upgrades and other improvements before heat pumps can be installed. In jurisdictions with relatively low energy prices, energy savings may not cover the cost of that work. Targeted grants, combined with affordable financing and public measures to reduce lending risk, will be needed, particularly for non-profit, co-operative and Indigenous housing, and buildings serving lower-income residents.
We also need explicit access for three- and four-storey buildings across rental, strata and co-operative ownership. Program rules must accommodate whole-building projects and multiple homes under one owner; a rebate limited to one per person cannot provide a sufficient pathway for these buildings. Support should include protections that preserve affordable rents, prevent displacement and ensure tenants share in the benefits of energy-efficient heat pumps without absorbing the costs of the retrofits.
Renewing the Deep Retrofit Accelerator Initiative recognizes that building owners need help moving from an idea to a completed project. While we applaud the renewal of DRAI, the assistance needs a longer-term and larger financial commitment, with explicit support for low-rise multi-unit residential buildings and the development of building portfolios that can move through planning, financing and installation together. This is essential to create a dependable pipeline for contractors, manufacturers and investors.
UCL looks forward to working with federal partners and the wider retrofit sector to translate this announcement into practical pathways for the residents of older multi-unit buildings. They need and deserve to be part of Canada’s energy transition.
Quote:
Shauna Sylvester, Founder and Lead Convenor, Urban Climate Leadership, a project of MakeWay:
“Today’s announcement is a welcome investment in Canadians’ homes, health and economic future. We applaud the federal government’s leadership in making heat pumps and home retrofits more accessible while strengthening support for rental buildings. Building on this momentum, a whole-building approach that explicitly includes older three- and four-storey apartments and condo buildings will help bring these benefits to vulnerable residents. Pairing targeted grants with affordable financing and delivery support will make these upgrades affordable, protect residents from extreme heat, and create a dependable pipeline of projects that will grow Canadian manufacturing, skilled jobs, and local economies.”
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Resources:
Keep It Cool: A Made-in-BC Economic Development Strategy
About Urban Climate Leadership
Urban Climate Leadership (UCL) is a pan-Canadian initiative of MakeWay Charitable Society that removes obstacles to equitable climate action. Through Keep It Cool, UCL brings together private, public and non-profit leaders to advance heat-pump retrofits in older three- and four-storey apartments and condo buildings. UCL identifies policy, financing, and delivery barriers and develops practical pathways to healthier, safer, and more affordable homes, while supporting Canadian manufacturing, workforce development, and local economic opportunity.
Media contact: Shauna Sylvester, Urban Climate Leadership, shauna@urbanclimateleadership.org, 604-354-0813
media@urbanclimateleadership.org | www.urbanclimateleadership.org
