Posts Tagged ‘Andrea Horwath’
London Free Press: The anger is blowin’ in the wind
Wind turbines: A protest in Strathroy on Saturday is a taste of things to come in the fall provincial election
By RANDY RICHMOND THE LONDON FREE PRESS
Grey-haired, 81-year-old Stephana Johnston is the kind of person to give the provincial Liberals fits when she waits outside Dalton McGuinty’s campaign bus this fall.
Leaning against her walker, she looks frail — except when she starts talking about wind power.
“We are suffering and it is a horror story and you are responsible because you agreed to the Green Energy Act,” Johnston tells Lambton-Kent-Middlesex Liberal MPP Maria Van Bommel.
With the next Ontario election only five months away, wind energy and the Green Energy Act is on track to become a huge issue of the campaign.
Johnston says she had to move from her home on the north shore of Lake Erie near Long Point after nearby wind turbines started interrupting her sleep.
“There are some nights when I wake up and just everything inside me is quivering. It has compromised my immune system. I am going everywhere I can go to prevent what has happened to us,” she vows.
Slowed by her walker but energized by her anger, Johnston still marched down the main street of Strathroy Saturday with about 80 others to protest wind turbines.
The peaceful protest march erupted into a raucous, hour-long confrontation with Van Bommel.
Van Bommel could barely finish a sentence without being shouted down by furious protesters who demanded she support a moratorium on turbines until research proves they are safe.
At times she had to stop and simply take the barrage of insults from protesters, some in tears and some claiming she betrayed their friendship.
“Imagine when (McGuinty’s) bus is met 28 days straight with crowds like that in Strathroy,” says John Laforet, president of Wind Concerns Ontario.
Urban dwellers and political analysts are underestimating the anger in rural and small town Ontario over wind turbines, he says. “This is the fight for the life and death of rural life. There is a huge anger out there and I think it is going to get worse.”
For wind energy opponents, the stakes are high. “This is our only shot,” Laforet says.
Wind Concerns — a coalition of 57 groups — will likely endorse either parties or individual candidates and encourage rural residents unhappy with McGuinty to work on getting him ousted.
Eighty municipalities representing two million people have called for a moratorium on wind farms, Laforet adds.
“There a lot of people looking for something to do. Direct political action is the most effective thing a resident of Ontario with concerns about wind can do.”
Hundreds of wind turbines have been installed or proposed in many areas of Southwestern Ontario, a 10-riding region dominated by McGuinty’s Liberals.
Opponents say turbines emit low-pitched sounds that disrupt the body’s rhythms and cause headaches, tinnitus, dizziness, nausea, rapid heart rate irritability and concentration problems.
Proponents say there is no proof of ill effects and turbines are better for the environment and personal health than the coal-fired generating plants they are supposed to replace.
“It’s a very emotional issue and I think we have to recognize that,” Van Bommel said Saturday after the protest. “There are many things that are going to be election issues in rural Ontario. I‘m sure the Green Energy Act will be uppermost in many people’s minds.”
randy.richmond@sunmedia.ca
Twitter.com/RandyRatLFPress
No Comments »Andrea Horwath Proves She is Classier Than McGuinty – Congratulates Hudak
This is the unedited Ontario NDP response to Tim Hudak’s victory, straight from the Canada News Wire NDP Leader Andrea Horwath congratulates Hudak.
“I want to congratulate Tim Hudak on his successful run for the leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. I look forward to working with him in this exciting new role.
I also want to thank former PC Leader John Tory and interim Leader Bob Runciman for their service. While we differed on many issues, we were able to work together in the Legislature with mutual respect.
I am confident that respect will continue with Tim and I wish him congratulations tonight.”
This is the unedited Ontario Liberal Party response to Tim Hudak’s victory, straight from the Canada News Wire Harris wannabe squeaks by at Conservative convention.
Deal with Hillier and plan to scrap human rights protections prove Hudak is out of touch with Ontarian’s values
MARKHAM, ON, June 27 /CNW/ – Ontario Conservatives moved further back to the old Mike Harris era and further out of touch with today’s Ontario in selecting Tim Hudak as their Leader.
Hudak’s victory is owed largely to the support of radical-right wing candidate Randy Hillier. Hillier’s pledge of support came after Hudak followed Hillier in attacking the human rights protections Ontarians have valued for decades.
Hudak followed the Mike Harris playbook with negative, divisive pledges to rip up contracts of nurses and teachers. In addition, Hudak has pledged to slash funding for construction of new hospitals, schools and transit in communities across Ontario – which would throw thousands out of work in the middle of a global economic crisis.
“Ontario families don’t want to go back to the days of the Harris-gang calling the shots and Tim Hudak following,” said Liberal MPP Chris Bentley.
“Ontarians rejected that approach and don’t want to look back.”
My Commentary:
The Ontario NDP did not have any staffers or members of caucus present at the Ontario PC Leadership election. By my count, the Ontario Liberal Party had one Cabinet Minister and four staffers who are full time employees receiving salaries from taxpayer funds. Instead of handing out factually inaccurate and embarrassingly pathetic attacks on candidates at the PC convention, the NDP let the Tories have their weekend undisturbed, unprovoked.
This to me is a clear demonstration that Andrea Horwath gets that politics doesn’t have to be negative, and hopefully the Ontario NDP decision not to use taxpayers money for partisan purposes (unlike the Ontario Liberal Party) is a demonstration of their rejection of that cynical practice as well.
I’ve always liked Andrea Horwath, and see her response to Tim Hudak, someone I’m sure she disagrees with on almost everything with, demonstrates a decency that politics is missing. That is something I definitely admire and am happy to see Horwath demonstrating.
9 Comments »Laforet.ca Coverage of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Leadership Race Will Start Soon
We’re about a month away from the Ontario Progressive Conservatives selecting the next leader of the official opposition, and their candidate for Premier in 2011. It’s a four person race, by any one’s standards a wide open field that will come down in large part to folks second and third choices.
Around this point in the Ontario NDP leadership race in March 2009, working with Jeff Hume, I began covering the race and giving candidates an equal opportunity to get their message out unfiltered, while providing other bloggers with some original content to work with as they chose.
Currently, I’m in the process of setting up the remaining interviews with candidates, and hope to have footage to share from these one on ones soon.
As with the Ontario NDP leadership race, my coverage will be done with an open mind, fairness for all candidates and a simple goal – to provide bloggers with original content to work with, to provide a wider audience with introductions to the four candidates who will shape the future of the official opposition, and one of three leaders who will be in a position to form the next government in Ontario.
I have to say, I have sincerely enjoyed my new role as a political active, non partisan. Doing things like covering the Ontario NDP leadership race, focusing my activism on local issues that go well beyond the limits of partisan politics has been quite the experience as well. It is my hope that using new media tools to cover this leadership race will open up the process, the issues and the candidates to folks across Ontario.
Until there is footage of the sit down interviews with the Ontario PC Candidates to post, I am going to share with you a number of my favourite videos that Jeff Hume so expertly produced as part of our coverage of the Ontario NDP race to give you a flavour of what is to come.
Enjoy.
Greg Elmer – Professor of Media Studies at Ryerson University on New Media and Conventions
Campaigns Talking Get Out the Vote Strategies
Andrea Horwath – Just Before First Ballot Result Interview
Andrea Horwath Friday Rally
Emergency Policy Resolution on US Steel (Stelco) Layoffs
Andrea Horwath Pre Convention Interview
Peter Tabuns Pre Convention Interview
Gilles Bisson Pre Convention Interview
Michael Prue – Part One Pre Convention Interview – Michael Prue the Man
Michael Prue – Part Two Pre Convention Video – Prue the Candidate
