“ Today’s announcements are aimed at using cleaner energy, like natural gas, and making sure that we use energy as efficiently as possible,” said Minister McCallum. “By making natural gas more available in Halifax, these projects will help businesses, institutions and individuals make decisions that will address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

“ The Halifax district heating project is another way in which Nova Scotia is demonstrating its commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” said Minister Clarke. “We have to extract every last bit of benefit from every fuel dollar we spend. Projects like this one will show how to do that.”

"This project will be one of the ways that downtown Halifax will be able to do its share for greenhouse gas reductions," Minister Regan said. "By providing solid anchor customers for gas distribution on the peninsula, customers will be able to choose to displace coal and other, more emitting fossil fuels."

“Atlantic Canadians well recognize the impacts and consequences to our environment and our economy from greenhouse gas emissions”, said Michael Savage, Member of Parliament for Dartmouth-Cole Harbour. “I am proud that the Government of Canada in partnership with Nova Scotia and Halifax has developed this innovative and transformative project that will benefit our citizens for years to come.”

"The announcement of these funds is great news," said Mayor Peter Kelly. "HRM has made a commitment to the Community Energy project because air quality is so important to Regional Council and our residents. Our membership in the Partners for Climate Protection Program, our Community Action Plan and Clean Air Strategy illustrate HRM's commitment to improving our air quality. The federal and provincial financial support will certainly help move the Community Energy project forward, resulting in huge environmental and economic development benefits for HRM."

The Ministers also announced that the Government of Canada, along with the Province of Nova Scotia and Heritage Gas, will provide financial incentives to owners and managers of commercial and institutional buildings and municipal, university, schools and health facilities to convert furnaces and water-heating equipment to energy-efficient natural gas equipment. The Government of Canada will invest approximately $3.8 million, matched by the Province, to provide rebates for up to 50 percent of the capital costs paid by medium and larger energy consumers to replace their existing space- and water-heating equipment with high-efficiency equipment.
The Government of Canada’s contribution to the Community Energy System project is anticipated to come from the Partnership Fund, the key mechanism for federal-provincial collaboration in Canada’s climate change plan. Budget 2005 provided $250 million over five years for the Partnership Fund, which could grow to $2 to $3 billion over the next few years as more and more projects are brought forward that will bring about the goal of reducing GHG emissions by 55 to 85 megatonnes by 2012.

The Partnership Fund is a component of Project Green, a set of policies and programs by the Government of Canada aimed at supporting a sustainable environment, healthy population and competitive economy. Project Green addresses environmental and competitiveness issues for the 21st century, including measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to increase fuel and energy efficiency and to increase Canadian and foreign markets for environment technologies can drive our economy and protect our environment and health.

The Partnership Fund includes and expands on previous efforts to work with provinces and territories on climate change, including the Opportunities Envelope and agreements with provinces and territories for cooperation on addressing climate change.
A major co-benefit of the measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will be reductions of other pollutants. The updated climate change plan is ensuring cleaner air across Canada and an improvement in Canadians’ quality of life and health.
More information on Canada’s updated climate change plan, Moving Forward on Climate Change: A Plan for Honouring our Kyoto Commitment, can be found at http://www.climatechange.gc.ca.
Canada will host the world from November 28 to December 9 at Montréal 2005: United Nations Climate Change Conference. Minister Dion will be President of the Conference for a one-year period from November 28, 2005, and as such will serve as Chair of Montréal 2005. Details at www.montreal2005.gc.ca.