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Rob McMonagle, executive director of the Canadian Solar Industries Association (CanSIA), said he was pleased to see a boost in support for wind and other industries. On the other hand, he was disappointed that the government still lacks an appreciation for the role that solar can play.

"They don't seem to get it when it comes to solar," says McMonagle. "They're thinking about it, but it's using the old paradigm of central power generation. I wish I could take all these politicians over to Holland. They've got half our population but triple the installation for solar technologies."

In Holland, $7.53 of the public budget, per capita, goes toward solar photovoltaic installations, versus 27 cents in Canada. Germany, which gets the same sun exposure as Winnipeg, is even higher at $13.41.

McMonagle says there's a failure to see that approaches to renewable energy production should be more complementary than competitive. "But they're always putting us into our separate niches and asking, who's the winner here?"

Heading into the federal budget, CanSIA had a wish list. It wanted to see the creation of a 10-year program to install 80,000 solar hot-water systems in existing homes.

On top of that, the program would provide support for 3 megawatts of commercial solar PV installations and the installation of 30,000 residential systems averaging about 3 kilowatts each.

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