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“Ontario is carefully reviewing the decision and we understand that Canada is doing the same in order to determine next steps,” said a statement from the energy ministry. It observed that Windstream was awarded only a small fraction of the damages it wanted.

Twenty-eight million dollars is still a lot of money for us to pay Windstream to not build a wind farm.

Before the file turned into an omnishambles, windmills in the waters of the Great Lakes were part of the Ontario government’s plan to kickstart the green-energy industry in the late 2000s.

Offshore turbines offend fewer people than wind farms on land and get higher, steadier wind. Windstream’s project off Kingston was supposed to generate up to 300 megawatts of electricity, putting it in the same league as a nuclear reactor, and it had a contract to sell that energy to Ontario’s grid.

Until, in 2011, the provincial government slapped a freeze on offshore wind projects, its second in five years. Both came in election years, though the government has adamantly denied electoral politics had anything to do with either of them. Many people who own lakefront property don’t want to see windmills off their shores, even in the distance.

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After the first moratorium in 2007, the government pronounced itself satisfied with the safety of wind farms in the lakes. Until, in 2011, it wasn’t again.