A challenge of this magnitude lends itself to a mission-oriented policy approach. This involves establishing a societally relevant goal, asking what resources are required to achieve it, and inviting multiple bottom-up solutions to improve performance.

Canada's mission can establish an ambitious, but possible in theory, goal of retrofitting all buildings by 2035. Retrofit process performance objectives to achieve this goal should include decreasing retrofit costs by at least 50 per cent, increasing the speed of a retrofit to days instead of weeks, and enhancing value by achieving deep energy savings, improving indoor environmental quality and resilience against climate change impacts.

To organize the mission, we suggest creating a national innovation-oriented organization, as well as on-the-ground market development teams throughout the country. These teams will reshape how existing retrofit markets work by initiating large-scale projects that co-ordinate building owners, supply chains, and local policymakers to meet transformative retrofit goals.

This is a mission that Canada can take on. It involves the creation of new systems for the widespread use of technologies to meet the challenges of our harsh geography, similar to Canadian successes in long-distance transmission and extracting oil from sand.

This approach is also the appropriate response to the climate emergency that the federal government declared two years ago. The response to the pandemic has shown us what an emergency response looks like and what we are capable of when we work together to face down a crisis. A national mission that sets ambitious goals and invites transformative solutions is what we need now to effectively respond to the climate emergency.