Bill No. 101 - Marine Renewable-energy Act. - 2nd Reading

CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : I'll save most of my comments on this bill for third reading. I will say that it looks good on the face of it. It seems administrative. We were convinced during the briefing that, as this is a new and emerging industry, and this is the only act of its kind in the country, I believe, it does require fairly constant updating to keep up with the emerging science and practice as we try to explore marine renewable energy.

As my colleague just mentioned, one of the changes is to shift the application process for the development permits to be evaluated on the merits versus first-come, first-served. While that sounds good, we definitely look forward to seeing what those merits are - to seeing a framework developed so that we understand how those applications are considered. We were told the spirit of the law is that it will, in fact, allow us to see how those projects are consistent with our environmental goals, with our energy goals, et cetera. All of it sounds great, but we really do look forward to - the devil is in the details, as they say. We will be watching for what that framework looks like.

With those few words, I'll look forward to presentations at the Law Amendments Committee. I'm sure there are a lot of people who know a lot about this - more than most of us in this Chamber. Hopefully, some of them will come and share their insights.