The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is shuttering its signature home energy retrofit loan program, despite earlier warnings that any interruption in funding would confuse consumers and throw the industry into disarray.

In its pre-budget submission last month, Efficiency Canada had urged the Carney government to recapitalize the Greener Homes Loan Program in its fall budget and turn it into a permanent statutory program, warning that the $600-million top-up it received in the December, 2024 Fall Economic Statement would run out by mid-November in the absence of new funding.

“The skilled trades sector is watching, homeowners are waiting, and contractors who’ve built their businesses around this program shouldn’t have to wonder if they’ll have work next year,” the organization warned at the time.

In the end, the program is falling apart even faster than expected. “The final day to apply is October 1, 2025—Energy Efficiency Day,” Efficiency Canada notes this week.

“The Greener Home Loan Program was the principal way the federal government supported middle-income Canadians in reducing their energy costs and reducing their greenhouse gas emissions,” Brendan Haley, the group’s senior director of policy strategy, told the Toronto Star.

“When the Greener Homes Grant was cancelled, the promise was that the loan would be the principal avenue for energy retrofits,” he said. Now, “I don’t know what’s going to be left of (Ottawa’s) climate agenda.”

The Greener Homes Loan Program has offered 10-year, interest-free loans between $5,000 and $40,000 to help cover home retrofit costs like insulation, air sealing, new windows and doors, smart thermostats, efficient space and water heaters, solar panels and inverters, and climate resilience improvements. Efficiency Canada says the average participating household cut its energy use by 24% and its climate pollution by 49%, while lowering energy bills and improving comfort.

Moreover, “loan disbursements are recorded as financial assets with relatively low fiscal costs, making the program a productive public investment that builds customer demand, supports skilled trades, and grows Canada’s retrofit work force.”

In late July, Efficiency Canada’s a pre-budget submission [pdf] cited the Carney government’s own policy priorities as a call to action and urged Ottawa to:

• “Maintain and evolve” the Canada Greener Homes Loan program with long-term funding, beginning with a $4.3-billion infusion over four years;

• Prepare to develop a Canadian version of the ENERGY STAR program and to market it internationally if the Trump administration shuts down the widely-acclaimed U.S. version;

• Increase funding for low-income energy efficiency to $2 billion under the Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program;

• Use Canadian technologies and expertise to double the pace of energy efficiency improvements—and treat the work as a nation-building project.

A bit earlier in July, two other experts contended the government should look at an ambitious energy retrofit program as “a nation-building initiative waiting in the wings” that would shift Canadians’ daily energy use while delivering healthier, safer indoor spaces, more resilience to severe weather, and lower heating and cooling costs.

“What if we looked at nation-building not only via single projects, with a primary proponent, location, and outcome?” asked Chris Severson-Baker and Monica Curtis, the Pembina Institute’s executive director and senior director for communities and decarbonization, in an op-ed for The Hill Times. “What if we developed nation-building programs—like retrofits for multi-family units—addressing many societal needs at once, and in the process creating a wave of economic activity, including new Canadian industries and supply chains?”

In August, more than 80 organizations and businesses signed a letter to Housing Minister Gregor Robertson, reinforcing the call for the program to be recapitalized. Nearly 800 Canadians have since followed up with letters to their MPs, and Efficiency Canada is urging everyone else to follow suit.