As part of its new suite of environment-centred legislation, on January 19, 2007 the federal government announced an initiative entitled the ecoEnergy Renewable Initiative.
January saw a significant number of federal initiatives in the area of the environment in a bid to "green" the Conservative government. Many of the initiatives have some similarity to programs announced by the previous Liberal government, and the ecoEnergy Renewable Initiative (ERI) is no different. The 2005 Federal Budget included a commitment to expand the existing Wind Power Incentive Program (WPPI) to support an additional 3000 MW of new wind energy and to initiate a program for renewable energy sources other than wind called the Renewable Power Production Incentive (RPPI). These budgetary commitments were not implemented before Canadians went to the polls and the new minority Conservative government has not funded these programs to date, despite declared support from all federal political parties.
