Heating markets across Canada, read from public data

West Coast: British Columbia

British Columbia is the most mixed heating market in western Canada. In 2023, 36% of BC households had a forced-air furnace as their main system, 28% relied on electric baseboards and 10% on a heat pump, up from 4% in 2013. Natural gas heated 42% of homes and electricity 36%.

The province also has the widest climate range: a mild, wet south coast and much colder Interior and North. For a heating owner, that means one province can hold both a heat pump market and a furnace market a few hours apart. The British Columbia page covers it, including CleanBC programs and Technical Safety BC.

Prairies: Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba

The Prairies are furnace country. Forced-air furnaces were the main system for 78% of Alberta households, 79% in Saskatchewan and 67% in Manitoba in 2023, and natural gas fuelled most of them. Heat pump shares were too small to report reliably in all three.

They also have the sharpest seasons. By our calculation from Statistics Canada's gas distribution table, Manitoba took 77.9% of its 2025 residential gas between November and March. Pages: Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba.

Central Canada: Ontario and Quebec

Ontario and Quebec hold most of the country's heating companies. The June 2026 Business Counts list 6,525 employer locations in plumbing, heating and air-conditioning in Ontario and 2,983 in Quebec, out of 16,754 nationally.

The two markets could hardly be more different. Ontario is a gas furnace market, with furnaces in 66% of homes, while 70% of Quebec households heat with electricity, mostly through baseboards (54%) and a growing heat pump share (16%). See Ontario and Quebec.

Atlantic Canada: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI and Newfoundland and Labrador

Atlantic Canada is where heat pumps have moved fastest. In 2023, a heat pump was the main system for 36% of PEI households, 27% in New Brunswick and 25% in Nova Scotia, compared with 8% nationally. New Brunswick also reported 21% on mini-splits, a category first broken out in 2023.

Oil still matters here. In PEI, 78% of boiler households and 80% of furnace households burned oil in 2023. Newfoundland and Labrador is mostly electric, with 56% on baseboards. Pages: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador.

The North: Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut

The territories are small markets with very long heating seasons and fuel that often arrives by road, barge or sealift. The Canada Energy Regulator's Northwest Territories profile puts the territory's 2022 diesel demand at 4,740 litres per person, more than six times the national figure, and links much of it to heating and power.

The business counts list just 60 employer locations in the category across all three territories. Our territories page covers what that means for an owner.

How to use these pages

Each province page follows the same order so you can compare them: the heating mix, the competitor field, seasonality and climate, the regulators to know, current programs, and how we would approach planning and marketing there. All figures are linked; our calculations are labelled.

Two warnings apply everywhere. First, the 2023 heating survey added categories, so changes between 2021 and 2023 are partly reclassification. Second, the business category includes plumbers, so the counts overstate heating-only competitors.

If your company works across a provincial border, tell us; the plan will treat each side as its own market. For the services behind these pages, start with provincial market data briefs, or read the guide to the heating-system table. Call, text or email when you are ready to talk.