The proposed regulations…

The proposed regulations under the Electricity Act, Planning Act, etc. all seek to grandfather the FIT contracts awarded by the former liberal government under the ill-considered Green Energy Act.

Those contracts have caused significant damage to residents of rural Ontario. Some have had their wells polluted; others cannot sleep in their own homes because of infrasound and stray electricity; still others have had portions of their abutting lands sterilized by the set-back boundaries around IWTs on abutting properties. In addition, rural municipalities have been deprived of potential assessment revenue by the prejudicial deemed assessment values applied to IWT by regulations under the Assessment Act.

A further concern is that the various ministries that are charged with monitoring compliance by existing IWTs with existing FIT contracts and Renewable Energy Approvals are either unwilling or unable to monitor or enforce regulations and conditions that were supposed to protect the health of persons and the natural and economic environments in which they are located. There have been over 4,000 complaints registered by individuals suffering the consequences of REA facilities without any significant response from the ministries concerned.

There should be no consideration of grandfathering existing REA facilities without provision for (a) immediate measures to remediate the damages suffered across Ontario by rural residents, and (b) adequate measures for monitoring and enforcing compliance with measures to protect both the human and the natural environment.

Furthermore, filing individual comments in respect of proposed legislative measures has been completely ineffective in the past. If anyone actually reads the comments, there is never a response and the proposed legislation is enacted unamended. The only solution to the problem of operating IWT facilities is for the Ministers of Energy, Electricity, Municipal Affairs and Environment to convene a conference at Queen's Park to meet with representatives of the victims of the Green Energy Act to understand the problems caused by REA facilities and to develop remediation subject to which existing operations might be grandfathered.