The government is budgeting $2 billion over eight years with a target of retrofitting one million homes.
Households below the median income level can get up to $10,000 back on a heat pump purchase, while other homeowners can get $2,000 by switching to a heat pump.
Ottawa is in the process of winding down an existing program to subsidize purchases of heat pumps for homes heated with oil. As of March, the Oil to Heat Pump Affordability program helped to install more than 30,000 heat pumps across the country.
The “it costs more” is generally relevant to the parts of the country where you also need supplemental heating equipment installed because it stays below -20C for extended periods of time (at those temperatures air source heat pumps can’t keep up with heating demand).
That may not be the case in parts of southern Ontario or coastal BC, but there are large parts of this country that would need the extra heat.
That said, over the life of the system it still costs less when you take into account lower fuel consumption.