Our congratulations to Brian for being named number 12 in Green Power Magazine’s list of the “Top 20 Movers & Shakers of the Green Energy Act”.

Green Power Magazine is a brand new publication that focuses on “the people making the policies and projects for Ontario’s green energy future.” They wrote,

“As a founding member of the Toronto Renewable Energy Co-operative (“TREC”), Brian helped launch the Toronto waterfront windmill project with resulted in Canada’s first community-owned wind turbine, located at Exhibition Place. As a result of the TREC project, Brian helped found OSEA [Ontario Sustainable Energy Association], supporting the replication of the TREC project across Ontario. From 1999 to 2008, Brian sat on OSEA’s Board of Directors, providing guidance and advice to the fledging organization. For almost two decades, Brian sat on the Ontario Co-operative Association’s Steering Committee, meeting monthly with the Financial Services Commission of Ontario to advance the financial policy framework for Ontario’s co-operative sector. Brian’s most significant contributions to the GEA [Ontario’s Green Energy Act] campaign were both the development of the amendment to the Ontario Co-operative Act, which liberates the ability of renewable energy co-operatives to raise community capital to finance community projects, and his extensive work with the Ontario Power Authority to develop a workable and legally sound definition of ‘community power’.

“For his extensive service, Brian was presented the first Community Power Award as a tribute to his invaluable contribution. Brian continues to work on the GEA as a member of the Management Committee, a TREC Director and as a CPF [Community Power Fund] director.”

Congrats, Brian!

Find out more about Green Power Magazine at their website, greenpowermagazine.ca. If you manage to grab a copy of the summer issue, see if you can spot Brian elsewhere in the issue.

David, I want to let you know my concerns regarding the police actions last weekend.

While the police have a difficult job to do, there were clearly decisions as to how policing would be handled at the highest level that demand answers: This is not about individual officers’ misdeeds, although there was ample evidence of those.

I heard Chief Blair publicly state that those who were in attendance in the downtown areas on Saturday and Sunday were either naive or curious, and should go home. By implication all others were engaged in criminal activity and at risk of arrest. He wrongly – and clearly intentionally – omitted the fourth category of attendees – those who were genuinely concerned about

• the absence of any consideration at the G8 summit of the many issues of real concern  – poverty, the environment, social justice, and human rights, and
• the failure of the police to respect the rights of those who chose to attend to bear witness to those issues.

Read the rest of this entry »

On May 12, the Ontario Government released its first draft of legislation to replace the existing Corporations Act, for non-profit corporations. This will affect most non-profits (some are incorporated federally), but will not affect co-operatives (whether non-profit or not).

It is the result of some intensive consultation that occurred several years ago. That consultation was the impetus for the formation of the Ontario Non-profit Network (ONN – see http://ontariononprofitnetwork.ca/), a network of networks that helps to build communication and coordination amongst non-profit organizations working for the public benefit in Ontario.

Generally, this proposed legislation modernizes the corporate law that applies to Ontario non-profits quite nicely.

Initial fears of constraints on commercial activity did not materialize.

But none of ONN’s big asks made it into the draft. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Monday, Ontario Energy Minister Brad Duguid announced a new funding program for community renewable energy projects, to be managed by the Community Power Fund. This is huge news for the community-based renewable energy sector, which includes many of our clients.

As a founding board member of the Community Power Fund, and a member of the negotiating team that worked out the details of the CEPP Program with the Ontario Power Authority, I’m particularly pleased.

More details on CEPP, and the application form, are found at http://www.communityenergyprogram.ca/

– Brian