Danny Robidoux, Executive Director of Eco West Canada, attended this week’s virtual Rural Municipality of Wallace-Woodworth Council Meeting to highlight a project aimed at facilitating more environmentally friendly transportation in the province.
“Eco West Canada is a national not-for-profit that was established in 2017, but we’ve been working in Manitoba since 2008,” Robidoux said. “We’ve been assisting municipalities through a process that we believe helps them identify and facilitate the adoption of clean and green technology. That’s in the area of energy, transportation, waste water treatment, waste management and circular economy development.”
Robidoux thought the Zero Emissions Vehicle Infrastructure Program, which is presently underway, might be of interest to Wallace-Woodworth Council and their ratepayers.
“Essentially, it is to install 31 electric vehicle charging stations across the province where we have received funding (from Natural Resources Canada),” he said. “We would be able to provide 50 per cent of the cost of purchase and installation of electric vehicle charging stations up to a maximum of $5,000. The estimated cost of a single station is $12,500 installed.
After the program was launched, eight municipalities initially signed up to participate. The number has since decreased, due in part to the pandemic, leaving Robidoux to look further afield to secure spots for the chargers. “We started making phone calls to see who would be interested in picking some of these up,” he said. “We’ve been pretty successful in finding homes for all of these, and have three remaining.”
A request for proposals for the supply of the hardware has now been issued. A universal system is being considered, rather than one that is limited to certain makes and models of vehicles.
“If by chance you were interested in a level 2 charging station and were hoping to get some funding for it, we have funding available,” Robidoux said.
Reeve Clayton Canart was receptive.
“We’re always going to be interested in options or ideas going forward,” he said. “We can have a discussion regarding the electrical vehicle chargers and see how they’ll fit us, and you can stay in contact regarding ideas and programs coming up.”
In the past, Eco West has worked with Wallace-Woodworth to access Federation of Canadian Municipalities funds in order to conduct a feasibility study on flood mitigation initiatives.
“Seeing as your Climate Action Plan has been completed, we’d be interested in seeing if there’s any opportunities to support you in possibly implementing various projects in the near and not so near future.”
