There are many months ahead, and for Guildwood residents the choice is clear. Our community needs someone who isn’t afraid to stand up to this bully and I am the only candidate that has demonstrated that not only am I able to, but I will stand up for our best interests even to George Smitherman.

Here is the link to the piece.

Toronto Star: Smitherman’s Words Come Home to Roost

Love him or hate him, or even his video for that matter, Giambrone’s campaign in my opinion has demonstrated the best understanding of social media of all major campaigns in the race so far. Sure the video content is doesn’t necessarily paint Giambrone looking mayoral but it has been seen by over 30,000 people in just over a day. Compare with George Smitherman’s official launch video on his youtube page with closer to 500 people, or Rocco Rossi’s Empire Club speech with around 400 viewers over a considerably longer period of time.

A lot of folks are debating the content, whether Giambrone struck the right cord or not, but this early in the game the ‘say anything you want about me, but spell my name right’ approach to public relations applies. For a Mayor’s race getting out there and getting noticed is a good first start.

Even if you’re Rocco Rossi and you’re suggesting it is a stunt unworthy of a campaign that should be about policy, the cold hard reality that Giambrone’s team was able to make a video go viral and get their unedited message (regardless of content or quality) to a group that big that quickly AND get traditional media coverage of the whole thing should have you taking him more seriously than you did before.

If you’re George Smitherman – you need to be worried Giambrone will be able to excite the 30,000 or so folks who tuned in in the first 24 hours, because they are an audience you surely need to be able to reach out and win over as well if you’re to maintain a commanding lead.

Finally if you’re Joe Pantalone, your ability to be the main candidate for progressives and those on the left of the spectrum could prove to be a lot more difficult as the new media types that have tuned into watch are a constituency you need to reach if you’re to compete.

Giambrone’s video is certainly not a game changer and likely doesn’t put him any closer to sealing the deal, but it surely will create a good turn out for his launch, and allow him to connect better with individuals early, making it easier to get his message out, unfiltered to a larger audience than the other big name candidates in the race.

At the very least it makes the case for an exciting race to come.

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Being Mayor of Toronto is a difficult job, and one that with years of sidestepping serious structural challenges by Council becomes that much harder with each passing day. I was hoping we’d have a race between David Miller, John Tory and George Smitherman. I felt a race like that would give the City the opportunity for a proper ‘battle of titans’ and clear choices on what kind of person and leader the City wanted.

With Smitherman, Giambrone, Rossi and Pantalone in the race, this does seem to have a lot of the characteristics of the 2003 election that saw the emergence of David Miller – the question now is simply, who is the candidate that has the staying power and ability to rise above the pack and convince enough Torontonians that they are the one to lead.

I know in my community there is one candidate who is out for many voters, but even of the other remaining options, it still isn’t clear who would be the champion of people, someone who gets it and is prepared to govern responsibly and with respect for voters. Those are the qualities I will seek in a candidate for Mayor.

When he was feeling out a bid for Mayor – I was at least interested to see what kind of issues he would take on, and the approach he would offer.

But my piece isn’t really about Glen Murray, just how his candidacy is being developed and covered by the media.

The headline announcing he is running for the Ontario Liberals reads ‘Ex-Winnipeg mayor a cabinet shoo-in?’

In the same article there is a photo of Glen Murray with the following caption ‘Winnipeg Mayor Glen Murray, smiles alongside Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion in this January 2004 file photo. Murray will succeed George Smitherman as the MPP for Toronto Centre.‘

The timeline for this is long and drawn out a bit. George Smitherman isn’t going to resign until February or March 2010 when he will officially announce his candidacy for Mayor. Once Smitherman resigns, the Premier has quite a bit of leeway in determining when exactly a by-election would happen. The earliest would be April or May 2010 – but could be June, July or August.

The ‘Cabinet shoo-in’ bit bothers me because it’s essentially saying to Toronto Centre voters – elect this guy to get closer to the action. The ‘Murray will succeed George Smitherman as the MPP’ bit is beyond presumptuous and again unfairly tries to influence voters in Toronto Centre to just accept the outcome being suggested.

Perhaps the most abhorrent part of this whole thing is the following ‘While he is not officially being handed the nomination on a silver platter, sources said at least one potential candidate was “being strong-armed and getting lots of pressure not to run.” Classy.

If a candidate is being set up as a Cabinet Minister in the making, a guy who has already won, and someone who can’t be challenged for the nomination – at what point are Toronto Centre voters involved in this process at all? So far, I count two Toronto Centre voters opinions being heard – Glen Murray’s and George Smitherman’s.

Rigourous nominations, hard fought elections and MPPs serving their local communities are all good things, and should be the focus of any provincial local election campaign. Nominations bring communities into the process and create an active, local organization of neighbours working to elect a candidate that was democratically chosen to represent their party on the ballot. Hard fought elections drive voter turnout, engage the public and require MPPs to work hard to stay elected. Engaged constituents expect results.

The Ontario Liberals and the Toronto Star should let the process play out in Toronto Centre and stop trying to influence unfairly.

So George Smitherman decided today after eHealth, OLG and the royal mess up that has been the Ministry of Energy it was time to move on to see what kind of damage he could do in Toronto.

Smitherman being Smitherman has decided to turn the office of MPP for Toronto Centre into his piggy bank while he rolls out his campaign. There is a problem with his strategy and I want to point it out before I go any further. Smitherman is planning to file in March, so five months from now.

The law is very clear – you can’t spend any money when running for office in any municipal election without first filing your nomination. It’s not like a federal or provincial election where riding associations can spend outside the actual election period to get over the limit and run a longer campaign.

Just how Smitherman plans to be declared as a candidate and not file, and still expect to do anything is beyond me. He is running for Mayor – that means events, rallies, staff, polling – all things that cost money.

I get that he would like to keep his paycheque, but that doesn’t mean he can get creative with the municipal elections act to preserve a paycheque he will no doubt not be earning as he prepares his bid.

I don’t care what party you belong to – watch this and watch it closely. How will he run and not spend a penny before he files in March? No money means no website, no flyers, no room rentals, no events, no staff.

Does anyone honestly believe he won’t spend any money running for Mayor for five months? He also can’t raise money legally either.

Beyond the fact that I think he is walking into a situation that will make him look ethically suspect at best, his media stuff today demonstrated exactly why this is a bad idea.

Smitherman demonstrated duplicity in his first interview as a candidate.

1) Smitherman criticized Council for not rolling back their cost of living increase. He is a member of a government that voted to raise their salaries by 25%, even while the government was in deficit. No vote on a rollback has been planned.

2) Smitherman attacked the Council for it’s first instinct being to tax to solve it’s financial problems. McGuinty’s government has never seen a balanced budget in over five years in office, and has added tens of billions of dollars to the debt. Smitherman has headed up the two largest ministries, each which surely have relied on deficit financing. Unlike the Province which raises the taxes of our grandchildren to solve their financial issues, the City has to balance the books at the end of the year. As far as I am concerned both deficit financing of an operating budget and tax increases are the same thing.

3) Smitherman shot at Councillors’ sense of fiscal responsibility. That’s not a statement I will dispute, but this is the pot calling the kettle black. The 2.4 billion dollar Pan Am Games is a joint venture with all three levels of government, meaning Smitherman and his friends in cabinet are responsible for enabling Toronto to blow $800 million on sixteen days of sports six years from now. His Ministry will be funding much of the province’s share, just as they funded $400 million of a $1.2 billion streetcar order of which the City is on the hook for $800 million. Those are two projects where Smitherman has enabled the drunken sailors to spend $1.6 billion.

4) On referring to the Mayor’s chair as ‘a bully pulpit’. So much for ‘post-ideological’ governence. Smitherman is proposing to scare half of Council into doing what he wants as a means of governing. I doubt members of Council are going to be up for this, and expect and hope they will vigourously oppose him on the ground as they seek re-election.

Smitherman has enemies. He has attacked a number of constituencies in the City and province and what better opportunity than an election where the guy is vulnerable to respond.

It will be a very sad day for our city if Smitherman is elected.

I encourage everyone to look at the other candidates as they emerge and consider your choices wisely.

But because the Wind Industry has taken the ‘big lie’ approach to their product, they’ve decided to risk the whole lot in a legal and or political battle they frankly can’t win. They’ve asked Wind Concerns Ontario to seek to throw their baby out with their toxic bath water, instead of adopting international standards designed to protect human health and the environment. The Wind Industry’s reaction to fierce opposition was to cry to government they’ve been bribing with donations that are subsidized with our money, to strip citizens democratic rights so folks couldn’t get in the way of their projects.

It’s all failed horribly. Even they get it has. I’m sure George Smitherman and Dalton McGuinty got that memo too. Research is being done, moratoriums are going in place in other jurisdictions. As an example the Maine Medical Association is calling for a health study. Michigan has initiated a study and countless European countries have designed to recognize that these industrial machines are noise emitting and noise impacts health and therefore setbacks of 1.5km to 2km would protect folks. So you have folks doing research, and folks taking the precautionary approach and then you have Ontario’s bribed Liberal government not caring and taking the lies from folks who stand to make billions selling these projects into the grid on their word.

Residents have said repeatedly we’re not going away. The Ontario Liberal Party has begun facing protests, and those will continue. Candidates shouldn’t be shocked if local groups actively oppose their re-election or replacement with another Liberal candidate. All the wind money in the world won’t save you from a motivated, organized on the ground opposition.

The following Liberal MPPs inspired the title, because they’ve put themselves in a position where a fair comment is now ‘they voted to not protect your health because the Ontario Liberal Party stripped your rights to complain’

Arthurs, Wayne
Berardinetti, Lorenzo
Brown, Michael A.
Sandals, Liz
Van Bommel, Maria
Wilkinson, John

Each of these individuals were doing ‘house duty’ when the vote happened, all have active projects and opposition in their ridings and none stood up for their communities. There are other Liberal MPPs who couldn’t even bother to attend the debate. You may recall Margarett Best refusing to vote on the Green Energy Act – essentially ducking. She did the same today, even with voters from Scarborough Guildwood in the gallery hoping she would redeem herself a bit.

I am proud of everyone who came to Queen’s Park from our 39 groups in 26 counties. It was a weekday in the middle of the day, so many had to take time off work to be there and send the message we did. It’s the dedication of Wind Concerns Ontario that makes us such a strong force in Ontario, and as the days and weeks roll out ahead, we will continue strengthening our opposition and our attacks on the government’s position – until our voices are heard, a court puts them in their place or we defeat local MPPs who demonstrate they aren’t up to the job, simply by not doing it.

This entry is about the OLG deciding (or being decided for) to build a power plant to power the casino in Minister Duncan’s riding. Don’t ask me why, I see this as being epically stupid too. The fall out has been pretty grim, and the government is refusing to release any details to the opposition on this file (I guess they aren’t allowed to expose more than three scandals at a time). Minister Duncan has handled the situation so well the Province is being sued for $355 million by the developer/operator of the plant in addition to what the former CEO is suing for over wrongful dismissal. I don’t think there is anyone else involved in the deal who could sue that isn’t already.

Why the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission decided it was in the business of building power plants in the riding of the Minister responsible for OLG is beyond me, especially considering it was the old Minister (George Smitherman who dropped this responsibility like it was hot once the odeousness of scandal started creeping up from the basement) who was all into the building of unnecessary energy projects.

That being said – I think we now know why Minister Smitherman dropped this like he did eHealth before it when things got messy.

Anyways – I’m not going to make this too heavy. Here is a video that shows Minister Duncan working out an answer to some of this in the legislature. If you’re still confused after watching (and you’ll probably be laughing at how ridiculous or crying at how irresponsible these people are) there are links below to media stories on it.

Duncan takes heat over $81M, OLG-owned power plant in his riding – Hamilton Spectator

Opposition questions $81M price of OLG power plant – Toronto Star

Duncan denies power plant part of casino expansion on hot seat after firing of OLG CEO – Windsor Star

He has failed Ontarians, and demonstrated he is a man whose ethical bar is so low one could trip over it. I don’t see how Premier McGuinty expects to continue to govern with this overgrown school yard bully running around the Cabinet room, throwing cash at the firms that are run by his former employees, and prepping his Cabinet colleagues, and possible leadership contenders for a political stabbing they simply won’t ever recover from.

Caplan should have resigned too, but not for eHealth. He was the Minister of OLG until him and Smitherman traded scandals Ministries.

I’ve said before that when Andrea Horwath and Tim Hudak agree on something – the Premier should listen. I don’t believe there has been a time when they’ve agreed on something that I have disagreed, and expect many Ontarians have a similar experience to their agreement on issues.

Ontarians deserve a government that isn’t going to blow over a billion dollars on back pats for their friends, while failing to live up to the job. Electronic health records are serious business. They will save lives and create a more effecient health system by ending duplicated tests, over prescription of drugs, and the dangerous situations that arise from a lack of information in the doctor/patient relationship. If the Premier, Smitherman or Caplan actually cared about this important goal, they wouldn’t have turned the agency responsible into a scandal ridden piggy bank for their friends.

As for Minister Smitherman not feeling ‘Survivor’s guilt’ over Caplan’s firing – you need a sense of densency and integrity to have a conscience that would compel you to feel guilt. The Toronto Star put it best when they said about Minister Smitherman’s handling of the Green Energy Act: ‘George Smitherman couldn’t find the political high road with a state-of-the-art GPS.’

Perhaps Dalton McGuinty needs to find his spine and point Minister Smitherman in the direction of the nearest exit, before Ontarians opt to do the same for the Premier.

90% of 680 News listeners would agree.

The IESO describes the wind industry’s failure to estimate their output accurately (something no other form of power within the grid has the same issue with) by saying “The variable nature of wind will however introduce specific challenges to the reliability of the integrated power system. These challenges are magnified as the number of wind power projects that are connected to the grid increases.”

By ‘specific challenges’ they mean supplying a constant flow of electricity to meet the needs of Ontario’s power use. Because wind power is not remotely tied to supply and demand, other sources of energy that are reliable need to step up when the wind calms down. Criticize me if you’d like, but this comes from “Mr. Wind” himself (as George Smitherman has taken to calling himself  — seriously.)

Germany is building 26 new coal power plants to solve this problem. Denmark is exporting the power and not using it for domestic use. Texas has opted to have brown outs. Ontario is proposing Natural Gas plants to solve this problem. In fact, George Smitherman himself has said the Natural Gas plants being built around the GTA are designed to pick up the slack when the wind isn’t blowing sufficiently to allow turbines to generate electricity (approximately 65% of the time). The only reason downtown Toronto were forced to accept a Natural Gas plant on the waterfront, and the residents of Mississauga/Oakville are fighting like hell to protect their airshed from even more pollution is because as George Smitherman says, you need to build Natural Gas to as a relief for when turbines don’t generate electricity (which is most of the time).

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These two issues are really one.

It seems to me like Ontario needs to have an honest and open debate about our energy future before allowing the wind industry to force turbines on some communities, risking human health and the environment; while forcing natural gas plants on others which also risk human health, and the environment. You’ll notice both trash local democracy in the process and neither is planned sufficiently to protect human health or the environment. Incidentally, both are heavily influenced by big oil.

Interestingly, Transalta – the Albertan company planning to build the plant in Mississauga/Oakville – is the same oil and gas company that operates wind turbines. You may remember them from such bad projects as Pincher Creek in Alberta that sees the needless death of 700 bats each year, even though Transalta could mitigate this easily if they chose to.

Enbridge is another oil and gas company involved in the devleopment of industrial scale wind complexes and the sale of Natural Gas in Ontario.

Suncor is an oil and gas company building turbines in Ontario too.

I fundamentally believe that Ontarians have a right to participate in decision making. It’s clear Dalton McGuinty doesn’t support the democratic process or environmental protection. Dalton McGuinty isn’t being a leader by trampling democracy, he’s sticking up for his Party’s donors. It seems to me like accepting money from corporations your government hands out contracts to is highly unethical. But for Dalton McGuinty this seems to be business as usual with his friends in the oil and gas and wind industries. Planning an Ontario Liberal Party fundraiser seems to be as easy as calling up the folks who have been given government contracts and advising them of the legal donation limit. Challenge me on this, but first visit the Elections Ontario website to see how many folks with government contracts donate exclusively to the Ontario Liberal Party.

Dalton McGuinty should take note that his friend Ben Chin (who he appointed VP Communications of the Ontario Power Authority) lost the Toronto Danforth by-election to Peter Tabuns largely on the Portlands Natural Gas plant.

I wouldn’t be shocked to see some of the Liberal MPPs in Mississagua and Oakville finding they have a similar problem if this project is forced on this community by a Premier far more interested in his donors and friends financial interests than those of the citizens of this province.

It is citizens that have the vote, and there isn’t enough dirty money in his party’s coffers to change that simple fact.

Wind Regulations Opposed

September 24th 2009

by John Divinski

Ontario’s set of regulations governing the location of green energy sources in Ontario are not getting a good report card from some circles.

The President of Wind Concerns Ontario John LaForet says the regulations are woefully inadequate.

The rules state projects of five industrial wind turbines or less will have to be at least 550 metres away from the nearest home.

The great the number of turbines, the greater distance they’lkl have to be away from residential areas.

LaForet says the distance is no where near what other jurisdictions are doing to protect human health.

He says the cost of an extra few metres from a residential area is nothing compared to the cost of concerned citizens losing their democratic rights.

LaForet says he can’t see any reason why a wind turbine development should be treated any differently than any other kind of development across the province.

He suggests the regulations are being forced on us without any dialogue and the Green Energy Act allows wind turbine companies to come in and set up shop without the blessing of any given community.

Efforts to contact the President of the Canadian Wind Energy Association, Robert Hornung have been unsuccessful.