Finance committee  Well, first of all, the Ontario program, through the Green Energy and Green Economy Act and its feed-in tariff, is a photovoltaic program for the generation of electricity. We have focused today on solar thermal. We're not recommending a national feed-in tariff program for solar

Finance committee  You're right, the sun will still be there, but the jobs will be in other countries. That's basically it.

Finance committee  Yes. I started to panic and I couldn't remember the number. On electricity, it is 14 jobs per megawatt, but it's a bit different because it's mathematically more complicated on the thermal side. Ernst & Young has done significant work, taking European numbers and other number

Finance committee  It is interesting that you ask. This morning at 9 o'clock I got on my BlackBerry—I've been at meetings all day—work that's been done by Ernst & Young on our behalf on all the solar technologies and what the multiplier effect is per megawatt of investment and per megawatt ther

Finance committee  Absolutely, and it's preferable to have that translated because it will take a bit of time.

Finance committee  What we're looking at right now is a program to bridge from where we are now, which is just on the precipice, to a four- or five-year period where we would work with government to look at how we could do it. We are very aware that you don't want us to be taking public money forev

Finance committee  So Canada's solar energy industry has great potential, but the solar thermal industry is now at a crossroads, and we need the federal government to partner with us. Federal leadership will support Canada and its provincial governments to achieve our sustainable economic developme

Finance committee  Good afternoon. My name is Elizabeth McDonald, and I'm the president of the Canadian Solar Industries Association, or CanSIA, as we're more commonly known. CanSIA is the national trade association for the Canadian solar energy industry. We represent almost 600 corporate members,

Natural Resources committee  Yes, we will be.

Natural Resources committee  On the electricity side as well you're going to see again that it's very scalable. If you look in Ontario at the microFIT program, the feed-in tariff program for homes, the uptake has been incredible. It has been double and triple the expectations that anyone had. I was at the On

Natural Resources committee  What happened in Spain was that there was both an economic need and an environmental need, so they adopted a national feed-in tariff program. There are some weaknesses to Spain; actually, Germany is the better example. It might be better in wind, but in solar, at least, they come

Natural Resources committee  I'll take the first part of that. You're talking about solar photovoltaics. In Ontario, we're close to 100 megawatts. We have a solar farm outside of Ottawa, which is 24.3 megawatts that will light up 7,000 houses. We're probably going to see in the next three to four years some

Natural Resources committee  Let me begin, and then I'll let Dr. Whiting finish. Mr. Whittaker was talking about the ecoENERGY for renewable power program, which has really not been as significant for the solar industry. We are here talking about the ecoENERGY retrofit program and the other programs that

Natural Resources committee  No, they're different industries. The photovoltaics industry is in a different situation, and I don't think it is having as much of an impact on the investments, because they're particularly in Ontario. Large-scale investment is just outside of Ottawa, actually, as well as across

Natural Resources committee  Thank you. Good morning. My name is Elizabeth McDonald, and I'm the president of the Canadian Solar Industries Association, known as CanSIA. We are the national trade association that represents the interests of the solar industry across Canada. We have over 500 members involve