While there is growing commercial interest in green energy, aspiring wind producers — ranging from international industrial-sized operations to small co-operatives — still face a host of regulatory hurdles in Canada, including a gauntlet of environmental assessments, municipal bylaws, requirements of electric utilities and the demands of community activists that differ from province to province.
Although Canada’s Constitution Act does not consider wind to be a natural resource as it does with forests, water or minerals — nobody can claim to own the wind-it does give the responsibility for electricity to the provinces, all of which have taken different approaches.
