Archive for February, 2009
Green Energy Act Proposes Major Setback for Environmental Movement
This bill has me a bit scatterbrained. It lacks the coherence or a tight enough topic matter to make it seem like it is actually just one bill. Regardless, after hours of not being able to write about it coherently, I feel like what I’ve stated below makes sense. I hope you agree.
Laurel Broten is the MPP for Etobicoke Lakeshore. She is the Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Energy and Infrastructure and the Former Minister of the Environment. It is safe to say if anyone knows what is going on with this bill it is her right? I mean a former Minister of Environment and current PA to the guy who’s responsible for this.
What does Broten say about environmental protection under this new bill?
“Most significantly, green energy projects would no longer be subject to the requirements under the Planning Act or, in most cases, the Environmental Assessment Act.” Laurel Broten, addressing the Legislative Assembly (for reference click this link to Hansard and look between 15:50 and 16:00)
Ok – So no Environmental Assessment in most cases.
They followed through on their promise to strip municipalities of their rights to control the land use planning issues around renewable energy projects and the promise to strip citizens democratic rights of dissent.
The Premier ”stressed that, when it comes to safety and environmental standards for green projects, “we’re not talking about compromising those one iota.” Toronto Star – February 11th 2009 McGuinty vows to stop wind-farm NIMBYs
Maybe not talking about compromising environmental standards ‘one iota’, but certainly legislating a complete disregard for the environment by having no standards.
Considering the Premier and his Minister have so gleefully and abusively stripped Ontarians of their fundamental democratic right to question government and to participate in peaceful dissent, just how can residents seek recourse?
Section 142.1 (2) states: “A person mentioned in subsection (1) may, by written notice served upon the Director and the Tribunal within 15 days of a day prescribed by the regulations, require a hearing by the Tribunal with respect to a decision of the Director under section 139 in relation to a renewable energy approval.”
Section 142.1 (3) states: “A person mentioned in subsection (1) may require a hearing under subsection (2) only on the grounds that engaging in the renewable energy project in accordance with the renewable energy approval will cause serious and irreversible harm to plant life, animal life, human health or safety or the natural environment.”
Section 145.2.1 (3) states: “The person who required the hearing has the onus of proving that engaging in the renewable energy project in accordance with the renewable energy approval will cause serious and irreversible harm to plant life, animal life, human health or safety or the natural environment.”
So let me get this straight. Toronto Hydro Energy Services wants to build a project closer to shore than any other project of it’s size in the world, with no requirements for an environmental assessment and will receive their approvals within six months of applying. Once they are approved, I have fifteen days to carry out an environmental assessment to demonstrate their project will cause serious and irreversible harm even though I’m not the one doing it? How can that even be done considering project specifics are almost certainly and legitimately deemed commercially sensitive? We won’t even know what they’re doing or how until it’s done.
Whoever wrote this bill must think the average citizen is like the Attorney General’s office and can blow $24 million bucks on legal fees without even noticing it. The provision described here is not something a person can do, at the very least it would take at least one lawyer and an environmental consulting team. Fifteen days is hardly the kind of lead time necessary for this.
What disgusts me is so called environmentalists who are attacking me and others who oppose the Scarborough Bluffs project with some of the most ridiculous claims I’ve ever heard used in a debate, while they sit by and let a draconian piece of legislation get rammed through the Legislature that will have a serious impact on nature conservation in Ontario.
It is shocking to think that this is the same government that brought down the City of Toronto Act, 2005 or the Greenbelt legislation. One recognized the importance of local autonomy and the other the need for nature conservation, this bill does neither.
I haven’t even waded into the economic damage this bill will have on Ontario when passed. One thing is for sure, if you’re John Tory – you just need to sit back and wait because the Liberals are handing you their defeat in this cumbersome, poorly thought out piece of legislation that makes as little economic sense as it does environmental sense. This will cost jobs, hurt low income families and cause all kinds of unmonitored environmental damage. But it’s Green so it must be good right?
According to Marion Fraser – former political staffer to the Minister of Energy who left QP to join the Green Energy Act Alliance and is on record stating:
“The dire need to stop global warming with an aggressive renewable energy plan for Ontario outstrips potential damage to sensitive environmental areas, says Marion Fraser, a founding member of the Green Energy Act Alliance.”
Right, because who needs sensitive environmental areas when you have wind mills.
They need to make serious changes to this bill if there is any expectation of it not turning out to be a political bomb. Nothing is worse than a rudderless government calling in an air-strike on itself. If McGuinty doesn’t listen to reason and passes a bill with severe economic consequences and even more serious environmental consequences, he will not only do exactly the opposite of what I am sure he has intended to, but on October 7th 2011 he can begin writing a book about that time he was a decent Premier and blew it.
On the environmental side, they need to ditch the reverse onus. They need to recognize European standards for offshore setbacks of at least 10 k and they need to require a full environmental assessment for all offshore wind projects in our Great Lakes.
I will save the economics for another day.
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Reading the Green Energy Act…
Well they’ve done it. Yes indeed. Ontario’s Abbott and Costello, introduced their Green Energy Act.
“Few things are as alarming as politicians who don’t understand an issue suddenly deciding they do and then dictating to the rest of us how we will be permitted to respond.” – Toronto Sun, February, 22 2009.
Still working on the bill itself. It’s a total of 75 pages. Naturally some of it is quite significant and worrisome other stuff is either unrelated or uncontroversial.
I am all for retrofits and conservation. Mandating the purchase of energy friendly products seems like a reasonable proposition too.
The “Renewable Energy” section is worse than I thought upon first glance. I am working through it now and will have more to say later.
Here’s a shocker for you – hot off the wire.
Toronto Hydro Applauds the Province of Ontario’s Green Energy Act
Toronto Hydro Corporation is pleased that the Ministry of Energy has implemented this bold initiative. I bet.
“On initial review, it seems that we will be able to accelerate the introduction of conservation and renewable energy projects.” David O’Brien, President of Toronto Hydro Energy Services - By accelerate do you mean ignore those pesky parts of the Class EA you were already ignoring before until we told Natural Resources on you and you delayed your application?
“For further information: Blair Peberdy, Toronto Hydro Corporation, Chief Conservation Officer, W: (416) 542-2515, C: (416) 356-8001″ - Blair, what have you done with Joyce? I thought this was her shtick?
3 Comments »Is George Smitherman Familiar With the Environment?
While both Premier McGuinty and Minister Smitherman have softened their ‘absurd’ rhetoric since unleashing a very public backlash on themselves across the Province, Minister Smitherman still doesn’t seem to get it. They’ve backed down from flinging insults at Scarborough residents, but still don’t seem prepared to recognize the environmental concerns Scarborough’s residents have.
Smitherman’s latest comments represent the fundamental lack of understanding the Premier and he seem to have regarding Scarborough’s concerns. It’s not about our homes, it’s about preserving the environment from untold degradation. Perhaps if either of them or their staff cared to read or reply to a single letter Guildwood residents sent them before dismissing us as ‘NIMBY’ they would know this.
Smitherman again took aim at opponents of a proposed Toronto Hydro project to put a string of wind turbines in Lake Ontario two to four kilometres off the Scarborough Bluffs, saying they are far enough away from homes not to be “impactful.”
“People are raising questions,” he said in a nod to area residents concerned about the impact turbines could have on human health, migratory birds and other natural concerns.
“We have done a lot of work looking at the evidence … we’re always reviewing the literature,” Smitherman added, suggesting polluted air from coal-fired electricity plants poses health dangers that outweigh concerns about wind turbines. Toronto Star, February 20th 2009
It is important that the Minister is now prepared to recognize there is a human health impact worth considering, but why can’t he recognize there is an environmental impact too?
This isn’t a balancing act. The environment should never be a balancing act. I get for political reasons comparing wind to coal makes for a decent talking point, but it isn’t a coal power plant that currently has the potential to release harmful substances into Toronto’s drinking water, cause untold damage to the shoreline or to bird, bat and fish populations. It is a wind turbine project that will not require a single ‘iota’ of provincial environmental review whatsoever. Nothing. Once they have the anemometer application from Natural Resources as far as the Government is concerned it’s officially ‘go time’. (You could already suggest the Government has decided it is ‘go’ time, considering Toronto Hydro Energy Services has stalled their application and the Premier and his Deputy have already come out swinging in favour of the application they have yet to received.)
Can Smitherman seriously ignore the fact that the proposal calls for the installation of 18 000 tonnes of massive structures in the lake, stirring up all kinds of unstudied lake bed sediment upstream from where 45% of Toronto’s water is sucked out of the lake? All of this disturbed debris, like the sand that created the Beach and the Toronto Islands will naturally drift towards the waterworks, where it has the potential to get sucked into the City’s fresh water supply. There will be no environmental review first so we won’t even know what we’re sending down current. Although should it be a problem, the good people at Toronto Water will tell us about it when the release their annual report monitoring the dozens of contaminants in our water they monitor.
As for his coal reference, at least to me it appears the Minister is giving folks the choice between getting their toxic Mercury fix between the air we breathe and the water Toronto drinks. Lake Ontario’s fish are inedible due to high mercury levels, and like other heavy metals that don’t dissolve in water they concentrate in lake bed sediment on the bottom with other harmful materials like PCBs. Construction will undoubtedly displace massive amounts of lake bed sediment.
Smitherman appears ready to ignore the fact that the Scarborough Bluffs is the most sensitive portion of shoreline anywhere on Lake Ontario and this project if ‘forced’ (the Premier’s word) on the community would be the world’s closest project of it’s size. Most European countries say one needs a minimum distance from shore of 5KM for nature conservation reasons. Germany thinks 20KM is necessary. Greenpeace Europe agrees that offshore plants need to respect this minimum distance, European wind energy associations do too. They also acknowledge the importance of full environmental assessments. So why can’t Minister Smitherman and Joyce McLean (the past President of Canada’s Wind Energy Association) take the advice of Denmark, Germany, Greenpeace Europe (McLean is also the former Greenpeace Canada Chairperson, and a former Great Lakes Campaigner for Greenpeace), and the wind industry. Do they seriously believe that they know something that the industry, governments and environmental lobby in Europe don’t?
Joyce McLean has no credibility left on this after the series of misleading statements, dirty tricks, and a demonstrated inability to appreciate any of the environmental, viability or economic concerns residents have put forth. (Once again, I am fully prepared to back up this claim if challenged.) Does the Minister really want to cast his lot in with her and hope for a different outcome?
In it’s current form this bill is not a “green” anything. It’s a fraud of a bill. It is bill cloaked in a label, written by industry insiders with a vested financial interest, introduced by a guy whose chosen to attack folks who object to the fact that not a single Provincial environmental review of any sort is required to construct 60 objects as tall as the Royal York with each weighing the equivalent of 6 subway cars each and anchored up to 90 metres deep on an unstudied sand bar. It is madness that the Province believes no environmental study whatsoever is required.
If he is serious about passing a true Green Energy Act he would recognize that set backs are necessary for environmental protection as well. He would recognize that there is a legitimate need to do a thorough environmental assessment before approving any project that has the potential to release heavy metals and PCBs into Toronto’s drinking water or have any negative environmental impact. He needs to recognize that the Scarborough Bluffs are unstable by their nature, and the construction and heavy pounding that is required to anchor a wind turbine 90 metres into a sandbar could cause erosion and further destabilize the cliffs. He needs to recognize that provincial legislation exempts wind projects from any environmental review. The provincial government just doesn’t care what kind of impact these things have.
I’m not an expert. But based on the current legislation, this blog and my attempt to use other studies and data to educate my audience, is the closest thing to an environmental study that will come out of this proposed project if Minister Smitherman doesn’t find the guts to tell the wind industry that they too need to follow the rules and actually care about the environmental impact their projects have.
The Premier and the Minister need to wake up before they risk damaging the amazing shoreline that is the Scarborough Bluffs because they were either too stubborn to admit they are wrong or not strong enough to stand up and show the leadership needed to protect the cliffs from a moneyed interest that doesn’t appear to care. They need to ask themselves before Monday when they introduce the bill why they wouldn’t want to adopt well recognized international standards for shoreline nature conservation and why the Scarborough Bluffs, which are far more delicate than other shorelines in the world, needs to have literally the closest project of it’s size anywhere in the world? And if so, why does it need to be the closest project of it’s kind in the world and the only one without any environmental review?
Finally – if anyone in a position of responsibility wants to contact me in either the Premier’s office or the Minister’s Office to discuss internationally recognized shoreline set backs for all offshore wind projects, or internationally recognized full environmental reviews, I would be more than happy to share this and can be reached at john.laforet@laforet.ca anytime today or over the weekend.
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