MODG urges speedy Senate approval of offshore wind Bill
GUYSBOROUGH — Citing the “negative impact” of delay, the Municipality of the District of Guysborough (MODG) is urging Canadian senators to move quickly on legislation that would help lay the ground rules for the budding offshore wind industry on the East Coast.
“Any delay in the passage of Bill C-49 will have a compounding negative impact on investment in the Nova Scotia renewables sector,” Gordon MacDonald, MODG director of economic development, told The Journal in an email last week. “[Wind energy] developers cannot risk multi-billion capital investments in the absence of regulatory processes and predictability. Bill C-49 is just the first step in creating that pathway.”
MacDonald took part in a delegation of Nova Scotia officials – led by provincial Natural Resources and Renewables (NRR) Minister Tory Rushton – to the Senate Standing Committee on Energy and the Environment and Natural Resources June 13 in Ottawa, where legislation to make the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board also responsible for offshore wind is under review.
“Offshore wind and green hydrogen are game changers for our province, and there’s a lot of work to do to establish these industries,” Rushton told the committee, emphasizing that both are part of the province’s plan to reach net zero by 2050.
Noting that Bill C-49 must be passed before Nova Scotia can make its legislative change “and issue the first call for bids for offshore wind licences [totalling] five gigawatts of energy by 2030,” he called on “our federal partners to move fast so we can stay on course, do our work and make sure Nova Scotia reaps all the benefits of this clean energy for our environment and for our green economy.”
In his email last week, MacDonald added, “Any project proposed will still have to go through a rigorous environmental assessment process and consultation process. I witnessed complete alignment between our federal and provincial governments on the approval of this bill and hope that the Senate of Canada understands the repercussions of any unnecessary delay.”
In an interview with The Journal earlier this month, MODG Chief Administrative Officer Barry Carroll said that both onshore and offshore wind are significant business and economic development opportunities for the municipality and surrounding area.
“The federal government clearly has EverWind [Fuels] projects that are stemming out of Guysborough as the number one project in Canada,” he said. “We’re going to be that renewable energy producer through the production of onshore wind and, hopefully, we’ll be the home for offshore wind coming ashore in Guysborough.”
Other members of the last week’s delegation to the upper chamber – which the NRR press release described as “clean energy leaders” who “attended to show their support for Bill C-49” – included: Warden Amanda Mombourquette of the Municipality of the County of Richmond; Elisa Oberman, Marine Renewables Canada executive director; Darryl McDonald, CEO of Potlotek Development Corporation; and Jennifer Deleskie, vice-president of business development and public affairs of Membertou Development Corporation.
Meanwhile, the CBC reported that, in his presentation to the committee, Chief Sidney Peters, co-chair of the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi'kmaw Chiefs, urged more, not faster, consultation on the legislation and “its potential implications for our constitutionally protected rights and the waters of Mi'kma'ki.”
Alec Bruce, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Guysborough Journal
