Bill 39 explained in plain English
Ensuring Affordable Energy Act, 2013
Ontario legislature bill summary, status, timeline, sponsor, votes, and official sources.
At a glance
Official Legislative Assembly of Ontario snapshot for 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. Representative vote breakdowns appear when the Assembly publishes an Ayes and Nays page for the bill.
Our plain-language take, written for civic education.
Source: By PoliticalData.ca
The Ensuring Affordable Energy Act, 2013, aims to give local municipalities control over industrial wind turbines, prohibit them in specific conservation areas, and change the rules for renewable energy procurement contracts and programs.
This bill, titled the Ensuring Affordable Energy Act, 2013, makes several changes related to energy production, particularly focusing on industrial wind turbines and renewable energy contracts. It gives municipalities more control over the installation and operation of industrial wind turbines within their boundaries and prohibits them in certain protected areas. It also alters how the Ontario Power Authority can contract for renewable energy and terminates a specific program related to renewable energy procurement. Additionally, it modifies definitions and provisions within existing legislation concerning energy and land use planning.
- Gives municipalities the authority to allow or disallow industrial wind turbines through by-laws.
- Prohibits the installation or operation of industrial wind turbines in the Niagara Escarpment Planning Area and the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan Area.
- Restricts the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) from entering into contracts for renewable energy if the price exceeds what would be paid for non-renewable energy.
- Terminates the OPA's feed-in tariff program for procuring energy from renewable sources.
- Amends existing laws to reflect these changes, including definitions and prohibitions related to renewable energy projects and wind turbines.
- Removes exemptions for renewable energy undertakings from certain provisions of the Planning Act.
- Allows municipalities, through by-laws, to restrict the use of goods, services, and technologies for energy conservation and to restrict activities related to renewable energy projects.
- Municipalities in Ontario
- The Minister of Energy
- Persons or entities wishing to install or operate industrial wind turbines
- The Ontario Power Authority (OPA)
- Developers or operators of renewable energy projects
- Residents and landowners within the Niagara Escarpment Planning Area
- Residents and landowners within the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan Area
- No person may install or operate an industrial wind turbine without municipal by-law authorization (or ministerial order in unorganized territories).
- The OPA must not enter into renewable energy contracts where the price exceeds that of non-renewable energy.
- Municipalities are permitted to restrict the use of goods, services, and technologies for energy conservation and related activities via by-laws.
- The Act comes into force on the day it receives Royal Assent, except for Sections 1, 2, 10, 11, and 12, which come into force 90 days after Royal Assent.
- The termination of the feed-in tariff program will impact the financial arrangements for renewable energy procurement.
- The restriction on OPA contracts may affect the cost of renewable energy procurement.
- The bill does not specify penalties for non-compliance, but it establishes prohibitions and requirements that could be subject to existing enforcement mechanisms under the affected legislation.
- The bill does not explicitly define what constitutes 'non-renewable energy sources' for the purpose of price comparison in renewable energy contracts.
- The bill does not specify the process or criteria for a municipality to issue a by-law authorizing an industrial wind turbine.
- The bill does not detail the penalties for installing or operating an industrial wind turbine without authorization.
- The definition of 'industrial wind turbine' excludes certain components, which might create ambiguity in specific cases.
Allows municipalities to use by-laws to restrict energy conservation goods, services, technologies, and activities related to renewable energy projects.
Source: Section 6
Prohibits the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) from contracting for renewable energy at a price higher than for non-renewable energy and terminates the OPA's feed-in tariff program.
Source: Section 3 and 4
Adds provisions that prohibit the installation or operation of industrial wind turbines within the Niagara Escarpment Plan Area and defines 'industrial wind turbine' for this area.
Source: Section 8
Adds provisions that prohibit the installation or operation of industrial wind turbines within the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan Area and defines 'industrial wind turbine' for this area.
Source: Section 9
Repeals definitions related to renewable energy projects, facilities, and undertakings, removing exemptions that previously applied to them under this Act.
Source: Section 10
Generated using AI from official bill text. Not legal advice. It is written by PoliticalData.ca for civic education, automatically checked and spot-reviewed before publishing.
Official textProcess Snapshot
Vote Summary
This bill does not have a published recorded division in the current official sources, so representative-by-representative vote counts are not shown.
No published representative vote breakdown
The current official sources do not publish a recorded division breakdown for this bill, so there is no representative-by-representative table to show.
Official sources
Status, sponsor, votes, and timeline on this page are drawn from these official legislative sources and public records. Each summary above is attributed to its own source.
How this data is sourced