Archive for December, 2009
Have You Ever Noticed ‘NIMBY’ Is a Slur Used Never Used By Someone Actually From the Community Affected?
I know it’s New Years Eve and I should be wishing everyone a Happy New Year – keeping it light etc. etc. But I wanted to make a comment on something that really bothered me today first.
I loath those who accuse others of being ‘NIMBY’. It is a bizarre, infuriating argument that demonstrates nothing more than the general intolerance of the individual uttering the phrase. There was a piece done by the CBC that interviewed a woman named Colette McLean, a farmer in Harrow Ontario who has done more for her community than many people I know and probably more than all the anonymous eco-bullies that are attacking her in the comment section.
The folks who call other’s NIMBY which stands for Not-in-my-back-yard are rarely affected by the project they support for someone else’s community. They are hypocritical idealists whose actions demonstrate the saying ‘opinions are like assholes – everybody’s got one’ has some merit. They have an inflated opinion of the value of their unaffected, uninformed opinion,when compared with the informed opinion of someone who will be affected. Imagine the kind of arrogance it takes to assume that your uninformed view of how someone should think or live or what should happen to their community, of which you aren’t a part, should supersede a local resident’s own informed view.
Those who oppose something in their community often would oppose it anywhere else based on the proposal they’ve rejected. I know that is the case with Colette, it is certainly the case in Scarborough and within all Wind Concerns Ontario’s forty two groups in twenty seven counties. We want province wide protections for all communities.
In Scarborough we had the Toronto Environmental Alliance, an ineffective, City of Toronto funded ‘pat on the back’ squad for City Council (who provide their funding), organize buses of downtown folks to come out and attack local residents for raising questions about a totally unprecedented project – effectively trying to shut down an Environmental Assessment process for their political masters and funders. None of them lived in the area, none of their ‘backyards’ were affected. They knew so little about our community they didn’t even know how to take the TTC to the meeting location. Instead they rented school buses to shuttle people from the subway and literally mirrored the 116 Morningside bus route – harming the environment in the process by putting more diesel burning vehicles on the road.
Yet the ‘holier than thou hypocrites’ felt they somehow had the right to tell others that we couldn’t expect a fair process, a proper environmental assessment or demand international standards be met. These folks fought an environmental assessment, are funded by the same folks funding Toronto Hydro’s research and used bully tactics to try and stop local democracy. Simply put – they had no stake and felt others who did have a stake should only have a right to the opinion of those who aren’t affected.
We had them outnumbered though (3 to 1 – 900 to 300) even with all their well financed astroturfing our grassroots strength can take them any day of the week on this issue.
In Colette’s case – the people attacking her live in places like British Columbia, Manitoba, Ottawa, Etobicoke – not Harrow Ontario – not anywhere close. Perhaps the uninformed and unaffected who hide behind this insult should recognize how hypocritical it is for them to preach what SHOULD go in other’s backyards while theirs aren’t affected. They haven’t attended a single meeting, they haven’t read the proposal, they haven’t participated in the process – yet they somehow think they know what is best for Colette’s community and neighbours.
Those who seek to attack others and claim that all the local community care about is their own home, or that something is wrong with standing up for their community – should stick to their knitting and do more to shape the look, character and development of their own communities in the way they would like to see them shaped and butt out of decisions affecting others that have no impact on them. What’s more the actions folks take close to home often are calling for broad changes to how things are done across the entire jurisdiction.
I know Colette McLean as I know countless others around Ontario who are fighting these irresponsible projects and yes they care about their communities, but there isn’t anything wrong with that and anyone who thinks there is – needs to have their head checked. The changes they seek to how things are done would help protect all Ontarians and all Ontario communities from harm, not just their own. But it starts with local action and leadership.
The day people stop caring about their communities, and stop trying to shape the destiny of their part of the world is the day industry and government will have total control. To those so-called environmentalists who support rollbacks in environmental assessments and gutting local involvement in planning decisions – I say, you’re rolling back democracy and while it may start with turbines, it won’t stop there. It will continue to natural gas plants which back up wind turbines – as it has already in the Holland Marsh and Mississauga/Oakville area and will continue through the nuclear power plants you despise, dump sites, heavy industrial zoning, urban sprawl proposals, big box stores, intensification projects, demolition of heritage buildings, private for profit use of public commons among other things. All of this because you felt so strongly about what other communities should be doing that you supported silencing members of the affected community so your vision for how they should live could be fulfilled.
We all need to care about what happens in our communities, and backyards because that is where each of us can have the largest impact. Sure we can have a larger view and should. We should all be demanding proper environmental protection, and an understanding of human impacts on all projects – whether wind turbines or any other significant environmental change before any shovels hit the ground – but above all we as citizens shouldn’t join in with industry and government and turn on those who seek due diligence to protect their communities from harm – especially when we ourselves don’t live there and don’t understand the details or risks. We should never shout down people standing up for these things or their communities.
It is people like Colette McLean who is standing up not just for herself and her family, but her community and communities like hers around Ontario that should be respected and appreciated for their efforts and not attacked by cowards hiding behind anonymous comments on a news story.
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9 Comments »Will 2010 See an Independent Health Study Into the Effects of Wind Turbines? The Toronto Star and Ottawa Sun Would Like It To
Wind Concerns has had an amazing 2009 that has seen our movement ground leaps and bounds in the face of attacks by the industry and government literally designed to shut us down. We’ve stood up, we’ve re-calibrated and pushed forward with our message in the corridors of power, and in meetings across Ontario. The media went from an attitude of indifference to one of support. We’ve been joined by a number of media outlets across Ontario in calling for an independent health study into the effects of Industrial Wind Turbines.
When Wind Concerns Ontario was founded in October 2008 it represented 21 groups coming together to stand up with one voice. By August 2009 when I became President Wind Concerns Ontario had thirty three groups, and as the year ends – we count ourselves present in 43 communities across 27 counties in Ontario and growing. The Toronto Star and Ottawa Sun have most recently joined a call echoed by the Barrie Examiner and others for an independent health study into the effects of wind turbines. The Maine Medical Association, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and four dozen municipal jurisdictions in Ontario representing 1.5 million people have joined the call of Wind Concerns. Those four dozen communities all support a moratorium until such a study is done.
We’re hoping in 2010, when Premier McGuinty appoints a new Minister of Energy and Infrastructure we’ll begin seeing a willingness to listen to medical experts, municipal leaders and Ontarians who are suffering and fund a study that all sides – Wind Concerns, the Government and the Industry Lobby can agree is fair, science based and designed to get at the heart of what’s happening in Ontario.
As President of Wind Concerns Ontario – I look forward to the year ahead, and some of the changes our organization will see moving forward. We’ve been busy preparing a number of improvements that will begin rolling out soon. With such a great force at work across Ontario I’m sure we’ll get results – or at least new politicians who will give us the results we seek.
1 Comment »My Letter Regarding Scarborough’s Place in Toronto Published by Eye Weekly
Whenever downtown heavy publications write about Scarborough I have to say I often read anticipating unfair commentary based on outdated, generalizations about Scarborough. When Eye Weekly published a piece ‘Toronto’s Eastern Skyline’ they were surprisingly kind, but being as proud to be from Scarborough as I am, I felt the need to write a letter to the editor to share why Scarborough is still the great hope of Toronto, which they published on the 22nd of December.
SCARBOROUGH FARE
Re “Toronto’s Eastern Skyline,” Psychogeography, Dec. 10: Much of the hope for Toronto still comes out of Scarborough’s success. Scarborough has led all of the city’s new waste-diversion initiatives, from the original blue boxes to the new garbage bins. We have the highest rate of waste diversion in the city. The urban planners that drew up Scarborough left more parkland per capita for residents, including many forested areas, than anywhere else in Toronto. Library-book circulation per capita is highest in Scarborough as well.
Amalgamation has changed Scarborough, but the memories and pride of what was once a city unto itself live on in the hearts and memories of many residents. The promise of Scarborough is alive in the hearts of her passionate residents who are ready to do their part to make our city the best part of Toronto. »
JOHN LAFORET
4 Comments »
