The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) will assess areas of rural Ontario for projects eligible for funding through the Natural Gas Expansion Program in early 2020, said Bill Walker, the province’s associate minister of energy, this week.
The Ontario Federation of Agriculture has been pushing for this for years and so Rejean Pommainville, an OFA director from Eastern Ontario said “I think it’s great news,” and “I think finally we’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Pommainville said in an interview with Farms.com that only about 20 per cent of Ontario’s rural residents and businesses have access to natural gas, compared with about 88 per cent in urban areas.
The announcement comes soon after a CN Rail strike disrupted deliveries of propane that many farmers needed so they could harvest corn and to heat barns, such as those for newly-placed chicks.
