Toronto resident Greg Djokic has enough to worry about these days. His wife Verica has Alzheimer's -- and they're on an extremely tight budget. The last thing he needed was a $3,500 bill -- for home upgrades that Ottawa promised to pay for.

"Whoa. It kills me," said Djokic. "My wife and I have a pension of about $2,100 per month. How can I pay this?"

Djokic is one of 3,300 low-income Canadians who applied for a new government subsidy -- to upgrade his older home and make it more energy efficient. The subsidy was administered through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, and was just one part of a bigger government energy-saving program called "Energuide."

The Energuide program had been in place since 1998, and the CMHC low-income earner subsidy was a new part of that program -- put in place this year. The entire Energuide program was killed by the new Conservative government last month.

Djokic and his wife received a letter from CMHC -- just before the program was cancelled -- telling them they were all approved. They went ahead and had their furnace and air conditioning system upgraded. They got the bill from the contractor. Then they got a phone call from CMHC.

"She says 'I have bad news. She said the government stopped the program'," said Djokic. "Actually I get zip. I don't get nothing."

"The whole idea is saving energy for this country," he said. "If there was any slight chance I knew they were going to cancel the program I would have never bothered to change anything".

That's not the way it was supposed to turn out. When the Conservative government cancelled Energuide, the minister responsible, Gary Lunn, told Canadians if they already had work done on their homes, they would be reimbursed.

Trouble is, Lunn's department doesn't administer the subsidy for low-income earners. CMHC is the responsibility of Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Social Development. CMHC told CTV they are still "waiting for direction" from Treasury Board on whether they should send out any subsidy cheques.

Lunn, on the other hand, told CTV people like Djokic should be getting paid.

"I can only say that there were wind-down provisions made for those programs and if they started the programs that once they began that they would be allowed to complete them."

The cancellation of Energuide has been controversial for other reasons, too. Environmental groups were already upset with the Conservatives -- over the lost opportunity to save energy.

"It was just tossed aside," said John Bennett of Climate Action Network Canada. "I don't think they put any thought into the implications of their decisions."

Bennett said their apparent neglect to reimburse low income earners just adds fuel to the fire.

"It's just an indication of how callous the Harper government is toward the Canadian public and to programs that protect the environment," he said. "I think we'll see a lot more of this type of callousness as time goes on."

Djokic said he's all for saving energy, but now he wishes he'd just kept on paying high utility bills instead. At least then, he said, he wasn't stuck with a $3,500 bill the government was supposed to pay.

"They should just send me the money," said Djokic. "Send me the money and many others too who are running in my shoes."

Send your tips and story ideas to:

Email address: whistleblower@ctv.ca
Phone number: 416-313-2494

Mailing address:
Whistleblower
c/o CTV News Toronto Bureau
444 Front Street W.
Toronto, Ont. M5V 2S9