Ontario Court Overturns ERT Decision Revoking Ostrander’s Renewable Energy Wind Farm Approval

On February 20, 2014, the Ontario Divisional Court set aside the Environmental Review Tribunal’s (ERT) revocation of Ostrander Point GP’s (Ostrander) renewable energy approval for a wind farm near Picton. In Ostrander Point GP Inc. (and another) v. Prince Edward County Field Naturalists (and another) (2014 ONSC 974), the Court found the ERT’s prior decision to be “unreasonable” on the basis of several errors of law which, both individually and collectively, were fatal to the ERT’s conclusions. The decision clearly signals that it will be difficult to overturn a renewable energy approval on the basis that the wind farm will cause “serious and irreversible harm to plant life, animal life or the natural environment.”

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