Jeff Heuchert
Staff Reporter
On the same day the provincial government unveiled its new Green Energy Act at Queen’s Park, MP John Wilkinson, Ontario’s Minister of Research and Innovation, was in San Francisco, where he addressed a crowd of stakeholders at an international conference on clean technologies.
Wilkinson was the only elected politician to present at the Cleantech Forum on Monday, Feb. 23; the event attracts close to a thousand of the world’s clean technology sector leaders together with entrepreneurs, scientists and policy makers.
Wilkinson says representing Ontario at the conference was a key step to developing new relationships with the clean technology industry abroad – selling Ontario to the international community as not only an ideal location to develop new manufacturing, but to look to for new ideas and technologies that are already being developed by companies in the province.
“It’s a win-win relationship that allow us to have more jobs here in Ontario,” he adds.
And that the conference fell just as the provincial government was introducing new legislation that Wilkinson says will make Ontario “a leader in North America in green energy and conservation,” couldn’t have worked out better.
What the provincial government is doing with the Green Energy Act is truly significant and it’s important for us to be able to connect with people from a policy point of view, he adds.
According to the Ministry’s website, the proposed Green Energy Act includes several key recommendations aimed at enhancing economic activity and reducing the province’s impact on the climate by making it easier to bring renewable energy projects to life and fostering a culture of conservation by assisting homeowners, government, schools and individual employers to transition to lower energy use.
It says the Act would facilitate the creation of 50,000 new jobs in Ontario over the next three years.
“Now that there’s going to be a lot more local demand here in Ontario, we believe that it is going to encourage companies that make wind turbines, or make solar panels, or make anaerobic digesters to build manufacturing here in Ontario,” notes Wilkinson, adding that having these kinds of green technologies built in other countries and shipped into the province is neither energy efficient nor cost effective.
He adds that the renewable energy industry will look to develop in rural areas of the province, which could be good news for Perth County and area.
The Green Energy Act and last week’s conference come on the heels of a report released in early February on the state of the clean technology industry in the province, which noted that Ontario’s clean technology companies have internationally recognized best-in-class technologies and products, and huge potential to grow into globally-competitive companies.
Wilkinson adds that the report also touched on the need for a better marketing of Ontario companies and the need for an improved procurement process so that the province is an early adopter of clean technology solutions invented right here in Ontario.
“If we fall behind the Americans then our top talents and businesses will end up being drawn down the the United States,” he adds, “and we haven’t made the investments we’ve made here in the province of Ontario over the last number of years to see that happen.”
