Exemptions to oil heating ban hurts Nunavimmiut, says housing bureau

The Nunavik Housing Bureau wants help to switch the region's houses away from oil-powered heating, saying exemptions for the region aren't necessarily helping them. 

There are already certain bans across Quebec on oil heating. In 2021, the province prohibited new construction projects from including oil furnaces, and it has also banned replacing existing oil furnaces with fossil-fuel-based heating.

By 2040, all homes in the province are set to be required to use renewable gas, which is generated by organic waste. 

But Nunavik's 14 villages rely heavily on diesel power, and the region is largely exempt from those bans.

Lupin Daignault, director general of the Nunavik Housing Bureau (NHB), said there are consequences to being the odd one out: fewer people are training in oil-powered heating, and parts for repairs are becoming hard to come by.

"All the suppliers say, 'Why don't you switch to natural gas or electricity?' But we don't have these options up here. So at a certain point, we're going to hit the wall," he said.

He added that the impacts of a spill or leak from an oil furnace can be more damaging when it happens in the north, compared to down south. Contaminated soil is costly to clean up and often has to be sent down south, and there's also a human cost as well.  

"You can imagine if you're a family and you're losing the house [due to a spill]. So you have to live somewhere else. And we are already living in a housing crisis in Nunavik," he said. 

Emily He is the manager of Pembina Institute's renewables in remote communities program. 

She said exemptions exist for good reasons, such as for remote communities that don't have the necessary infrastructure to make an easy switch to other energy sources. But she said those exemptions must also come with extra support. 

"I think that these exemptions really illustrate — from this unique provincial case — what happens when policy moves forward without fully considering local impacts," she said. 

Nunavik needs a solution now 

In the long run, both Daignault and He believe renewable energy is the way to go.

But Daignault said Nunavik needs a solution now. For starters, he wants to see more training in Nunavik, so they have people locally who can fix the region's heating systems. 

Another option that he proposes further study is for Hydro-Québec to build bigger power generators. 

Those power generators would still run on diesel, but he believes they'll be able to supply electricity for heating more efficiently, and it'll be easier to maintain compared to each home having its own oil furnace. 

NHB owns roughly 4,100 units, which is 90 per cent of the region's total housing stock. 

"That means maybe around 2,500 mechanical rooms [across their housing units]. So all these mechanical rooms have their own oil tank," Daignault said. 

Hydro-Québec disagrees, saying home oil furnaces are more efficient at producing heat than a power plant.

"In order to meet the increased demand associated with a switch to electricity, the diesel plants' capacity would have to quadruple, and the fuel use in the region would need to triple," the utility company said in an email. 

"Another important aspect — a litre of light fuel oil (residential heating oil) is less polluting in terms of greenhouse gas emissions than heavy diesel fuel at the thermal power plant."

Working together

Quebec wants to be net-zero by 2050. It also wants to lower its greenhouse gas emissions by 37.5 per cent below its 1990 levels by 2030.

According to the provincial government's 2024-29 implementation plan, buildings account for roughly 10 per cent of the province's greenhouse gas emissions. 

In the short term, Emily He believes there are quicker solutions for Nunavik's oil heating issues, such as retrofitting homes to be more heat efficient, and wood stoves, which she said are used in remote communities in the Northwest Territories and Labrador. 

"I do think though … the reality in remote communities is that heating oil systems are still often needed as a backup. So policy and utilities both need to ensure that communities are able to access the systems to support those backup needs," she said. 

Any solution, Daignault said, has to be collaborative. 

"We need to work together," he said.

"When there's some exemption, you have to make sure you start discussion with this … you can't just say there are exemptions and then forget about it." 

Hydro-Québec said it is aware of Nunavik's challenges with labour and the availability of fuel oil heating parts, which is something it typically addresses with the Makivvik Corporation, though it also acknowledged the need to work together.

"Finding solutions to these significant issues requires a co-ordinated approach with several economic and political partners, including the Québec government," it said.