We presently directly employ…

We presently directly employ approximately 22 people and through joint ventures are responsible for another eight full time workers plus additional seasonal and part-time staff. By this measure and probably too by volume of sales, we are likely among the largest builders of natural and high-efficiency custom, contract homes in Ontario. We largely have managed this in spite of rather than because of government leadership, though one program type in general that appeared to enjoy support and utlization across the the political spectrum and to a signficant degree, espcially across low through mid and moderately high income earning households, was that of the now cancelled GreenOn incentive program (and other like programs that precede it).

My comments pertain specifically to the loss of the GreenOn program, which was a wholly funded activity of the cancelled Cap and Trade Act.

To be certain, some of the monies offered through the GreenOn program were based on assumptions of energy efficiency gains that may not have been fully realized as intended. So some would argue that such activities weren't worth doing, much less subsidizing. I too would have preferred more science-based, verifiable, approaches to energy saving however I recognize the the tradeoff between efficacy and trying to keep oversight/administrative/bureaucratic costs to a minimum. Overall, given this administratively-light incentive program cost, I would contend that the amount of private investment that the incentives leveraged more than make up for not necessarily being perfect in the approach to energy savings.

Others may have argued that the incentives were too high. Indeed they were among the most generous we have seen in any similar past program. However this is precisely what is necessary if trying to incent an action. Past programs incentive levels weren't enough of a contribution to actually trigger a change/upgrade in a homeowners behaviour/purchase. Instead it tended to simply subsidize/compensate people who were already going to undertake the work and had sufficient wealth to perform it in the absence of the incentive. By contrast the GreenOn program, by my observation and others in the construction/renovation industry, actually did induce private investments that simply would not have happened in teh absence of this level of incentive.
So if the idea is to effect change then GreenOn actually did so, whereas past programs with lesser levels of incentive did not.

Assuming that the current government doesn't actually care if the program worked, since they might take the view that it was solving a problem that didn't exist (ie. climate change), then there is another purely economic consideration: to qualify for the program required using legitimate, above-board subcontractors and suppliers, thus greatly helped displace under-the-table renovations (which avoid municipal & electrical inspections designed for occupant health & safety and avoids contributing tax, thus harming all other Ontarians). The Ontario Home Builders Association, which is no bastion of liberal thought, I believe issued a report calculating that the additional above-board tax earnings would have very nearly paid for the GreenON program in of itself.

Said differently, the government has cancelled a program that enjoyed multiplier effects in terms of government revenues and actually paid for itself, helped provide work to legitimate & local/Ontario workers, leveraged private investment as the primary financial contribution, reduced homeowners' ongoing energy costs & helped improve the capital value of their homes, while happening to also attack climate change. What was not to like? And especially in the absence of any other plan and with a disorderly cancellation that was disruptive to business investment, the termination of this one small program within the larger Act is emblematic of something that appears political as opposed to sound fiscal, much less sound environmental policy.