NDP pitches energy-saving upgrades for homeowners

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh greets a young supporter during a federal election campaign stop in Burnaby, B.C. on Sunday, March 30, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi

VICTORIA — The NDP is promising to retrofit 3.3 million homes in Canada and pay for it by cutting supports for big oil and gas companies.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh was in Victoria, B.C. on Monday to roll out a major environmental plank of the party’s platform.

Singh said 2.3 million low-income households would get free energy-saving retrofits like heat pumps, air sealing and fresh insulation under the NDP plan. The party would spend $1.5 billion annually over 10 years to complete the upgrades.

The NDP says another $300 million per year to expand the Canada Green Homes Initiative would allow an additional one million households to finance similar retrofits with low-cost loans.

Singh said the program would save a family up to $4,500 a year on their energy bills and also create jobs to facilitate the retrofits.

“This is how we fight the climate crisis and protect Canadians from the effect of Trump’s trade war at the same time,” he said in a media statement.

Canada’s tariff dispute with the United States has become a dominant theme in the federal election campaign -- and party leaders have been directing their barbs at U.S. President Donald Trump as much as at each other.

Singh also put “Big Oil” and industry CEOs in his crosshairs on Monday.

The NDP said it would pay for its proposed retrofits by cutting annual subsidies and tax breaks for the oil and gas industry. Citing figures from the parliamentary budget officer, the party said cutting those supports would save Ottawa $1.8 billion per year.

“In the face of Trump’s trade war and a worsening climate crisis, we have a choice,” Singh said. “We can let CEOs and Big Oil profit while families pay the price, or we can take bold climate action that protects your job, lowers your bills, and builds a better future for everyone.”

The NDP also promised to maintain the industrial carbon price and to keep Canada’s emissions cap in place. The Liberals’ plan to kill the consumer carbon levy comes into effect on Tuesday.

The NDP also said it would introduce a “border carbon adjustment,” which Singh said would apply to goods brought in from countries without an industrial price on carbon, such as China.

That could be done by charging import taxes on international goods entering Canada that reflect the emissions generated by their production, or by offering incentives to domestic manufacturers. The NDP has not yet explained how its proposed mechanism would work.

The party promised more environmental announcements are coming in the campaign, now in its second week.

Singh met with B.C. Premier David Eby after the policy announcement Monday, and visited a group of supporters who were waving signs at a Victoria intersection later in the day.

Tom Harkins was in the crowd of a few dozen, clad in an orange shirt depicting the face of former NDP leader Jack Layton above the word “hope.”

Harkins said he’s been active in the party for 45 years and now lives in Esquimalt on Vancouver Island. He said he believes the party continues to have strong support there over both the Liberals and Conservatives.

“The Liberals usually haven’t had a lot of strength here, and so the opposition to the Conservatives, I believe, will be the incumbents on Vancouver Island,” he said.

Harkins said he was “saddened” by the NDP’s polling numbers but added the low support shown in polls may reflect strategic voting rather than a “backlash” against the party.

“Strategic voting may be affecting us, but that’s why I think on Vancouver Island it will work in our favour, instead of some areas of the country where it may be working against us,” he said.

The Singh campaign arrives in Edmonton Monday evening for events beginning Tuesday.

-- Written by Craig Lord in Ottawa and Darryl Greer in Victoria

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 31, 2025.