Archive for March, 2009
Guildwood Community Led Community Meeting a Great Success
‘Residents won’t lay down’ – this was my immediate reaction to Premier McGuinty and Minister Smitherman’s attacks on the good people of Scarborough. Yesterday hundreds of Guildwood residents came out and made it clear this was far from over.
What a remarkable display of democracy in action. Residents came together to talk about an issue important to their community, share knowledge, concerns and solutions to what has become a serious problem. Our elected officials may not listen, Toronto Hydro may continue to ignore it’s legal obligations and the Government of Ontario may be fixing to limit our right to participate in decision making – as Ontarians have been allowed to for generations, but Guildwood residents are holding strong.
The cafeteria at the local high school was turned into a meeting place where residents could drop in, go to different stations and talk to others who’d been researching specific issues for some time. What was most interesting was to see the number of residents who came out to talk to members of Save the Toronto Bluffs, and then speak with each other in the middle of the room to evaluate the information they had received and to share their concerns with others. It turned into an excellent opportunity for neighbours to see friends they may not have seen during all the snow, to talk about our community, to connect with others, but most of all – to strengthen their resolve to keep fighting this proposal.
I was thrilled to meet so many of the people I’ve been emailing back and forth with, and have the opportunity to share some of the more candid tales of this whole process, including commentary of how the actions of our opponents both created and fed a movement that would have otherwise been difficult to get off the ground.
It was a great event, one that saw everyone treated with respect, honest words spoken, and a robust conversation had. Even for a community with such vast variety of concerns what became clear is that engaging in dialogue is the only way issues like this can be understood and addressed.
And finally – on a more personal note, I was thankful to see so many members of the Guildwood community I’ve grown up knowing, meeting the individuals who’ve written me and shared their stories, concerns and kind words. Meetings like this are great for reminding those who devote their time to causes, what the stakes really are, and who it really impacts. I will take the positive energy from Sunday’s meeting and use it as my personal ‘renewable energy source’ to keep up my efforts, along with the thousands of Guildwood residents whose position I share, and together we will stop Toronto Hydro and can only hope Minister Smitherman recognizes how wrong this project was from the start.
The Ministry of Natural Resources now holds all the information they need to decline Toronto Hydro’s application. It was clear to everyone it failed to meet the legal requirements for such an application, but as we’ve seen, the truth, decency and law don’t appear to matter to these folks. – I know these values are shared by the members of the Ontario Public Service, and it is my hope they will find the courage to tell Toronto Hydro that they cannot choose not to comply with environmental laws (as they are attempting to do).
6 Comments »Quick Commentary: Ontario Provincial Budget 2009
Provincial Deficit for 2008/2009 – $3.9 Billion
Provincial Deficit for 2009/2010 – $14 Billion (est.)
Largest Deficit in Ontario to date – $12.4 Billion (1992/1993)
Cutting SIN taxes while raising consumption taxes is a bad idea.
Simple enough statement right? When faced with an economic free fall, high unemployment, and a shrinking GDP – one needs to encourage spending as a means of stimulating the economy. That is the idea that has seen governments from around the world respond to the current economic crisis.
Budget 2009 proposes cutting SIN taxes on alcohol (something we tax for a number of reasons, but in particular due to it’s proven impact on the cost of health care) while raising taxes on all kinds of things we need to be encouraging folks to buy like new homes, in addition to adding an extra 8% on many basic food items, electricity bills, gasoline and other aspects of daily life.
In general, on sales taxes at least, it would be fair to say that I am supportive of the status quo. I don’t think an economic crisis is a good time to introduce any kind of anti-stimulus as it gives people reasons to both put off big purchases and shrinks the value of a dollar (this is what causes inflation). That being said, cutting sales taxes isn’t something I would support either. The $1000 bucks a year for a couple or $300 bucks for a single person, with respect, will in many cases not make up for the negative impact this will have on people’s pocket books, certainly not on big ticket items.
Barriers to Economic Participation Remain
The budget lacks new money for childcare, something that like it or not is extremely important in allowing low and single income families the opportunity to improve their situations by enabling them to fully participate in our economy. A single mother for example is simply unable to work without having childcare and in times like these especially, it is important for government to be an enabler to economic participation. With a lack of vision to leverage skills training, or government supports like subsidized daycare to remove barriers for entry into the workforce, the 2% increase in social assistance is inadequate. A single person living on social assistance in Toronto, lives in what can only be described as extreme poverty, and faces barriers to re-entry to the workforce that turn utilizing social assistance into a ‘trap’ of sorts.
Now more than ever it makes sense to address social assistance rates to ensure that folks who find themselves in difficult times can live with dignity. By combining this with a removal of barrier to economic participation, government could rest assured that folks would seek out opportunities that could see them removed from the social assistance rolls and build a better life.
Culling 5% of the Workforce is a Bad Idea.
An arbitrary decision to lighten the provincial government workforce by 5% to me also seems inappropriate at times like this. The reality is if there is 5% of the workforce that is unnecessary, it shouldn’t take an economic crisis to fix that. Should the only reason for targetting 5% of the public service be that the government needs to find savings, I would suggest this is probably the wrong place to look. Having interfaced with government a lot in my life, I wonder how service delivery would suffer if one in twenty employees were removed. Perhaps the Cabinet should look closer to home and cull the same percentage of political staff, so that Cabinet Ministers themselves have to make some really hard decisions of their own by deciding who in their office they will let go. Having worked at Queen’s Park, I know there isn’t a single Minister who would want to cut a single true believer from their team, but perhaps this needs to be part of the thought process as they force their Deputy Minister’s and their senior staff to make the same difficult, arbitrary decisions.
In Conclusion:
The budget missed a real opportunity, and it is unfortunate that the government opted to focus on issues like the HST and public service workforce reductions when the times call for so much more.
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3 Comments »Update on Guildwood Community Meeting and Scarborough Mirror Coverage
Below is the text of an article that ran in the Scarborough Mirror’s Wednesday March 25th 2009 edition. I hope many Guildwood residents will bring their concerns about Toronto Hydro’s irresponsible proposal to the community meeting so that we can attempt to provide them with much needed information and honest answers to their questions.
Members of Save the Toronto Bluffs are stepping up to do what Toronto Hydro was legally obligated to and failed to do as part of the Class B Environmental Assessment. We will be providing honest and accurate information to members of a community legally defined as ‘affected public’ under Environmental Assessment legislation. The fact that Joyce McLean – a former NDP partisan and political staffer at the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, in addition to being the former Greenpeace Great Lakes Campaigner, either couldn’t or chose not to find her way through the legal requirements of an environmental assessment process is alarming to say the least. Especially considering she had the help of Anne Mometer at AECOM to help her out.
The irresponsibility of Toronto Hydro’s actions has caused great concern in the community and left residents without answers to very legitimate questions that should have been answer, had Toronto Hydro Energy Services properly completed the legal requirements of the Class B Environmental Assessment, which they failed to.
Once again, I’d like to invite all Guildwood residents to come out to our drop in meeting, share your concerns and ask any questions you may have about what is going on. I know everyone involved in this meeting is hopeful that we’ll be able to educate each other about the valid concerns and process issues.
Below is the text from the article:
Wind power information meeting slated
Save the Toronto Bluffs group to host event at Scarborough high school
By DANIELLE MILLEY
Fed up after two information meetings where they were able to “find out nothing,” concerned Guildwood residents are holding their own information meeting about wind power.Jacques Lupien is one of the organizers of the meeting, which takes place Sunday, March 29 from 1 to 3 p.m. at Sir Wilfrid Laurier Collegiate Institute on Guildwood Parkway.
He said the two information meetings held by Toronto Hydro regarding the installation of a wind testing device, called an anemometer, off the coast of the Scarborough Bluffs at Guildwood have not answered residents’ questions or addressed their concerns.
“They had a meeting at which we’d been able to find out nothing,” Lupien said.
After the Jan. 20 meeting, the Save the Toronto Bluffs group began planning for its own meeting.
Toronto Hydro attempted to hold its first information meeting Oct. 27, but it underestimated the community interest and had to reschedule as the room wouldn’t accommodate all those in attendance. The second meeting took place Nov. 24 with more than 1,000 people attending, including a lot of supporters of the project from other areas of the city.
Local residents complained the meeting was hijacked so a third meeting was held for local residents in January.
But residents still weren’t satisfied as questions around the economic impact and specifics of a wind farm remained unanswered.
So Lupien and others, including John Laforet, began planning their own community meeting.
“A lot of Guildwood residents are frustrated at the lack of information Toronto Hydro is providing,” Laforet said. “We’re in a position to share legitimate information with those who have questions.
“It’s members of the community taking a leadership role to share information with other members of the community.”
He said they’ve gathered information from government and industry sources around the world, such as the European Wind Energy Association and Greenpeace, about health and environmental impacts, for example.
At its meetings, Toronto Hydro officials pointed out they couldn’t answer some questions as they are still at the investigation stage to see if this is a viable site and it would do further environmental and economic studies depending on the results of the anemometer. If Toronto Hydro’s application to the Ministry of Natural Resources to conduct wind testing is approved, the anemometer would be installed this summer at a cost of $1 million. The research phase would take two years.
If a wind farm is erected there would be up to 60 turbines installed two to four kilometres offshore from Ajax to the Leslie Street Spit. This has many Guildwood residents concerned.
“It’s a huge threat to our lives. Those of us who live near Lake Ontario will be affected by this,” Lupien said.
“It’s a huge threat to health and environment.”
Lupien said members of the group, including doctors and engineers, have been doing extensive research about wind farms in other areas in order to provide those who attend Sunday’s meeting with information.
Lupien said the format will be different than the Toronto Hydro meetings as it will take place in the cafeteria with different stations set up where people can find information on specific topics such as the Green Energy Act or the anemometer.
While much of the information has been gleaned from the Internet, which Lupien admits isn’t always the most reliable source, much of the research has come from independent researchers and studies.
“We’ve gone deep into this,” he said.
Laforet said if there is something they don’t know, they’ll say so.
“If someone stumps us we’ll take their questions and go back and research the answer,” he said.
Lupien said this is also an opportunity for the Save the Toronto Bluffs group, which has 1,000 member, to recruit more concerned individuals. “
The link to the Scarborough Mirror Article ‘Wind Power Information Meeting Slated‘ can be found here.
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