A year after the Ford government scuttled an under-construction wind farm in eastern Ontario, the half-built site is still standing and the project’s owner and province remain locked in negotiations on compensation, despite promises from the government that the decision would not cost taxpayers.

It was last July that then-government house leader Todd Smith announced the immediate priorities for the first Progressive Conservative government in Ontario in 15 years. The cancellation of the White Pines Wind Farm in Prince Edward County, which falls in Smith’s riding, was among the three items pushed through in an omnibus bill once MPPs returned to the legislature later that month.

The project, owned by wpd Canada, would have seen nine wind turbines installed and producing energy to the grid by fall last year. Instead, it was cancelled with four turbines fully installed and the five others at various stages of construction.

The wind farm was opposed by county council and citizen organizations but supported by the County Sustainability Group.

When the government announced it was cancelling the green energy plant, the company said it would cost “well in excess of $100 million.”

At the time, Smith dismissed suggestions the government would be on the hook for these costs, saying protections put in place in the enabling legislation provide ample protection.

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“We put in a plan, a procedure, that is going to deal with this wind farm project without costing the taxpayers,” Smith said on July 11 of last year.

“Unlike the gas plant scandal this is going to be a legislated end to this contract and the government holds that power to legislate the end to this contract,” Smith said at the time, referencing the previous Liberal government’s billion-dollar gas plant cancellation.

However, the bill included an equation for calculating the compensation owed to wpd Canada for some costs including construction, decommissioning, employee layoffs and subcontractor and landowner losses. The total of those costs would be owed to wpd Canada less the benefits of things like insurance proceeds recouped by the company.

How all of that shakes down for the taxpayer is still unclear, but the energy department confirmed to iPolitics that something will be paid out from the public purse.

“The government will pay the compensation,” spokesperson Sydney Stonier said. “The amount is still to be determined, and more information will become available further along in the decommissioning process.”

wpd Canada did not respond to repeated requests for comment about the status of compensation negotiations.

Last week, the government released the requirements that the company will have to meet as it decommissions the site. Stonier said work is expected to start in the coming months.

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Stonier said decommissioning will have to be done before the total cost can be assessed, making it unclear how much longer the process could take.

The outstanding questions leave the NDP charging that the cancelled project will become exactly what Smith said wouldn’t happen when he announced the cancellation last year — another gas plant scandal.

“People in Ontario are going to pay a lot of money to deliver on Doug Ford’s political interests,” NDP MPP Peter Tabuns said.

“This is a lot like the gas plant scandal, you have a government acting in its own political interests and then we get stuck with the bill.”

The government has previously defended its decision by arguing that the majority of residents didn’t want the project and suggesting that the regulator inappropriately gave a notice to proceed to wpd Canada during last spring’s provincial election period.

Queen’s University professor Nicholas Bala, who teaches contract law, told iPolitics there’s nothing inherently wrong with cancelling the contracts but to suggest that you then wouldn’t have to compensate the parties is where the government got it wrong.

He called the political rhetoric from the Ford government on contracts “quite disconcerting” because it suggests the province “can just ignore contract rights or the rule of law because [it’s] a democratically elected majority.”

But he noted that when push has come to shove, the government has “pulled back” from the rhetoric, pointing to the fact that the government is negotiating compensation over the wind farm and also the more recent example of the province negotiating with the Beer Store to change its contract even as it publicly says it won’t have to pay anything to tear up the beer retailer’s contract.

Still, he said there’s no telling how long the negotiations will take because the government is motivated by different interests than the companies involved.

“The government’s bottom line is really a political decision. If the government wants to get it settled fairly quickly, they can do that. If the government wants to drag it out, they can do that,” Bala said.

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