In Budget 2024, the Federal Government allocated “… $30 million over 5 years to develop a National Approach to Home Labelling (NAHL).” This is intended “… to create a consistent approach that will support labelling for all homes across Canada with energy performance ratings, energy efficiency recommendations and climate resilience information that will inform Canadians.” Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN) has now released a Home Labelling: Informing Canadians on Home Energy Performance Discussion Paper (see attached).  

In the Discussion Paper, the Government proposes to work collaboratively with jurisdictions and stakeholders to develop National Guidelines for Home Labelling to “… outline best practices and suggested policy parameters for home labelling that can be adopted and implemented by provinces, territories and communities.” Also, because virtual home labelling services are becoming more prevalent, they want to develop a voluntary Virtual Home Labelling Standard “… to increase confidence and consistency of the information provided by virtual assessments …”. They will be consulting on both initiatives in early 2025, and the first iterations of the Home Labelling Guidelines and Virtual Labelling Standard should be finalized in 2025.  

Finally, NRCAN has found that it would be challenging to utilize the EnerGuide Rating System (ERS) for homes for widespread home labelling because “…  it is seen as too expensive, time consuming and difficult to scale.” The Government wants to develop a Simplified Energy Assessment that would “… bridge the gap between virtual assessments and the existing ERS.” An engagement plan is being developed and will be released early next year. It is anticipated that the Simplified Assessment will be ready in 2026. 

NRCAN is asking jurisdictions, stakeholders and the public to submit their feedback on the Home Labelling Discussion Paper to homelabelling-etiquetageresidentiel@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca by December 31st.