Just to clear the record up, I'm a fisheries biologist by training and I have a lot of difficulty with tidal energy and wind energy. The environmental problems with tidal and wind are always glossed over.
For example, in Ontario, every year there are over 41,000 bat deaths caused by wind turbines, 14,000 bird deaths, and 462 raptor deaths. In terms of the bats, three of them are SARA-listed species under the Endangered Species Act, but it seems that wind energy and all renewables get away from any environmental assessment whatsoever. It's in the mandate of the Minister of Environment to enforce the Species at Risk Act, yet at the same time the Ontario government ran roughshod over local communities in Ontario and eliminated their right of appeal in terms of assessing wind turbines and wind project developments.
Mr. Butler or Ms. Mitchell, should renewable energy projects be subject to the impact assessment act when it's passed?