Toronto: EDP Renewables Canada Ltd. (EDPR) announced May 14 that the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Divisional Court) had granted EDPR’s judicial review application in Nation Rise Wind Farm Limited Partnership et al. v. Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks et al. In doing so, the Court reinstated the Renewable Energy Approval (REA) permit for the Nation Rise Wind Farm, a 29-wind turbine, 100-megawatt wind energy project in the Municipality of North Stormont, approximately halfway between Ottawa and Cornwall Ontario.
In its reasons, the Court stated that “this is a case where the Minister’s decision is not reasonable and does not deserve deference. The decision does not meet requirements of transparency, justification, and intelligibility, as the Minister has failed to adequately explain his decision.” The Court concluded, “[T]his is a rare case in which the Minister’s decision should be quashed and the decision of the ERT should be reinstated.”
Among its reasons the Court noted that, as part of his decision to revoke the project’s REA, the Minister had raised a concern about a possible threat to bats caused by the operation of the wind turbines. In the introduction to its decision, the court noted that the issue of bat maternity colonies was not raised by any of the parties at the hearing before the ERT, was not discussed in the reasons of the ERT and was not raised by any of the parties in their submissions to the Minister on appeal. Accordingly, the Minister had no authority to raise risk to bats as an issue in his decision to revoke the permit.
Nation Rise began construction in May 2019, and said it was almost complete when the Minister revoked its Renewable Energy Approval (REA) in December. EDPR says it is eager to recommence construction of the Nation Rise Wind Farm.
See the separate analysis “Ontario Court Quashes the Minister’s Decision to Revoke a Key Approval” by Joanna Rosengarten, Reena Goyal and Will Horne of McCarthy Tetrault, also in this issue.