Update on Guildwood Community Meeting and Scarborough Mirror Coverage

by John Laforet
posted on March 24th, 2009 at 23:48:06 pm

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.

Update on the Green Energy Act, Toronto Hydro's Antics and the Great Work Happening on the Ground in Guildwood

by John Laforet
posted on March 21st, 2009 at 22:38:04 pm

Citizen’s Voices Will Be Heard But Will Smitherman Listen

It worked! There will be public committee hearings on the Green Energy Act. Residents from across our province sent emails to the opposition House Leaders telling them to force the Standing Committee on General Government to go out into the Province and listen to the real voices of citizens, and not just the paid voices of the wind lobby.

Setting the committee agenda is about the only place in the legislative process where the opposition has a majority. Folks from across Ontario called on the opposition to refuse to make deals with the government that would shut down our voices. Once again, both the NDP and PC caucuses stood up for residents of our province in the face of the ‘bought and paid for’ advice, the wind industry has provided the Liberal government through massive amounts of donations and their paid lobbyists.

As residents we now must take advantage of this opportunity, and head out to the hearings, send in submissions and tell the government ‘residents’ won’t lay down’. It’s clear Smitherman and his staff prefer listening to donors and lobbyists over the people of Ontario, and they will be out in full force trying to keep straight faces as they praise a bill they all but wrote. We need to join them and shame their lack of concern for the environment or democracy. Just like the oil industry, these folks are out to make a buck – regardless of the damage they do.

Toronto Hydro’s Latest Trick

Toronto Hydro Energy Services is without a doubt the most disgusting example of sleazy decision making I’ve ever witnessed. Joyce McLean and Jack Simpson have run such a totally dishonest process both they and Chris Tyrrell should be fired. McLean and Simpson have abused the public trust through absolutely unethical tactics, allowing the ‘affected public’ to be abused by their allies who receive funding from the same folks who fund their research. Chris Tyrrell has demonstrated he doesn’t have the guts to stand up to the bizarre, twisted and irresponsible actions of these employees of his – so he too must go. 

For her latest stunt, Joyce McLean has decided to submit an application, she must know does not meet the requirements for the Class B Environmental Assessment, to the Ministry of Natural Resources in the hopes of receiving the permit to go ahead with the Anemometer before the Green Energy Act is through committee. Anywhere else submitting a factually inaccurate paperwork would be legally frowned – but at Toronto Hydro it’s just another day’s work. 

We will prove they have not completed the steps in the Class B environmental assessment and we expect the Ministry of Natural Resources to stand up to Toronto Hydro and tell them they need to follow the law like everyone else and also run a fair, open, legal process. Guildwood is ready for a fight and is not going away. Should MNR accept the application, I promise to make the bureaucrat, who we’ve begun sending evidence to via registered mail, famous. You will know his name, where he works, and what we showed him prior to the decision being made.

 Guildwood Takes Action

I had an amazing day delivering flyers to Guildwood residents, informing them about our community meeting. With a lack of political representation, Cabinet Minister’s attacking our community and Toronto Hydro lying their way through the process – we are standing up. I am thrilled to be working with dozens of volunteers who have been speaking to their neighbours about what is at stake here and educating each other. 

Many are looking forward to a meeting where they can come with questions, collect information and answers and do so without a restrictive process, abusive paid eco-bullies like the ones the Toronto Environmental Alliance bussed to our last meeting. 

Although it is horrible to see a community railroaded and treated this way, Guildwood residents are working together to demonstrate the real strength behind democratic ideals that is alive and well in our community. It is heartening to see so many residents out of necessity getting involved in the political process, to stand up for their rights where those who have been elected to do so have failed to. 

George Smitherman Accuses Guildwood Residents of "Gamesmanship" – Paul Ainslie 'Amused' By Attacks

by John Laforet
posted on March 14th, 2009 at 13:56:07 pm

“Smitherman admitted strong opposition continues in Scarborough’s Guildwood area to Toronto Hydro testing for a possible wind farm offshore, but he complained residents practised “gamesmanship” against
a utility, which tried to present the process “in an honest and forthright way.”

There are always questions for which there are no answers, and repeating them enough creates “an impression of stonewalling,” he said.

“I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of support for that wind farm. But you don’t really hear about that.”

…

“In an interview, Paul Ainslie, whose Scarborough East Ward 43 includes Guildwood, said he’s “amused” by the Liberal government’s attitude.

Guildwood homeowners, he said, are held up as Not In My Back Yard opponents of clean energy to justify its legislation, but Toronto Hydro, which was “grudging” in how in gave out information, doesn’t need municipal permission for a wind farm.”

Minister defends green energy plans in meeting – Scarborough Mirror, March 13 2009

Once again Minister Smitherman has decided to run his mouth about Scarborough residents without first getting virtually any of the facts available to him. I have not been able to find a single resident who wrote Mr. Smitherman in January who has yet to receieve a response – which suggests his staff aren’t even bothering to read our concerns as he legislates our rights away.

The only gamesmanship has been perpetuated by Joyce McLean and her associates on the fringe left. Does Smitherman actually believe it is ‘honest and forthright’ to purposely select a meeting location outside of the community in question, against the advice of local representatives because they believed the location was too small, and then have to cancel the meeting when too many people arrived? Does Minister Smitherman believe it was ‘honest and forthright’ when groups funded by the same sources as the project McLean is managing, stacked Guildwood’s community meeting with busloads of paid environmentalists to shout down opposition in our community? Does he believe it was ‘honest and forthright’ when McLean and Toronto Hydro Energy Services came up with an exclusionary registration process that denied hundreds of resident’s an opportunity to participate? Was it ‘honest and forthright’ when McLean opted not to speak about the class environmental assessment required for the anemomter at all at the meetings called as part of the process and instead disclosed seven days after the meeting that that was it’s purpose? Is it honest and forthright for McLean to mislead resident’s about the success (or utter failure) of her last wind experiment? Is refusing to provide the community with information on minimum wind thresholds ‘honest and forthright’?  How about leasing the lake bed in July 2005 and waiting three years to tell the community about it, and then only doing so as part of a manditory comment period that MNR requires.How about denying me information that is considered public and will need to be made available at some point, until after the project has been approved.

The fact is Toronto Hydro Energy Services has made community participation absolutely impossible and angered so many residents there is no way this project can expect to recieve any community support whatsoever. If Smitherman wants to test this theory, I will gladly invite him door knocking with me to test the community pulse (and the waters for his Mayoral bid).

As far as gamesmenship goes, McLean has practiced more gamesmenship than anyone else in the process and she has single handedly destroyed any credibility Toronto Hydro Energy Services had in the eyes of residents. It’s too bad THES doesn’t care about their image, because a normal place would have pulled her off this project months ago and apologized for her utter disregard and lack of common sense.

If the Minister wants to see gamesmenship, he should keep ignoring and trashing Guildwood residents legitimate concern about his utter disregard for the environment and local democracy and wait to see our reaction the next time someone hands us a ballot. It won’t be pretty, I promise. Consider that of 6500 voters in Guildwood, 700 attended the last attempt at a meeting by Toronto Hydro and even using a randomized system for determining who spoke, not a single person rose in favour of the anemometer study.

Why? Because unlike Minister Smitherman, Ms. McLean, or Toronto Hydro Energy Services – Guildwood residents care about the environment and we know that nowhere in the world could anyone put a project this close to a shoreline. We know that Europe is waking up to the need to protect shorelines and has created nature conservation buffers mostly of 10k or more. We know that Environmental Assessments are important, even if Minister Smitherman doesn’t think so and we will oppose any project that doesn’t actually require one (regardless of what Ms. McLean will try and claim).

Richard Nixon, like George Smitherman cited a ‘silent majority’ when faced with an absolute crumbling of support for a drawn out battle of his. For Nixon it was Viet Nam, for Smitherman it’s Bill 150 – if passed as it is, it is certain to be the McGuinty Government’s political equivelent of a drawn out, unpopular war.

As for Paul Ainslie finding it ‘amusing’ that Minister Smitherman is attacking Guildwood residents and calling them NIMBY and our concerns ‘absurd’, I would say that he might be amused, but those of us who are actually talking about real issues aren’t. Councillor Ainslie would be well advised to take a break from his failed zoo take over and take a look at some of the more incoherent points he has made regarding the project that not only do not reflect the community position, but feed directly into the Minister’s communications assualt strategy on Guildwood. – Ainslie’s website has a number of them. Contrary to his comments about municipal involvement, the Councillor sits on the Toronto Atmospheric Fund and the City of Toronto Council – both of which are municipal bodies, each of which voted to fund this project, before it was made public to Guildwood residents. He is also well aware the City of Toronto owns Toronto Hydro and therefore it is inexcapably a municipal issue and one that he should have known about considerably longer than it’s been public to Guildwood residents.

As I said the day Premier McGuinty first attacked Scarborough residents ‘resident’s will not lay down’. He and Minister Smitherman can say whatever they’d like, the fact is steamrolling this bill through will have political concequences they don’t seem all that interested in and that’s fine, I guess. Further, Bill 150 will not make up for all the job losses that are piling up. February alone saw Ontario shed 35 000 jobs. This $700 million project Toronto Hydro proposes, according to McLean will produce just 200 ‘short term’ construction jobs. Ontario will probably lose more jobs between Bill 150′s introduction and royal assent than even this magic 50 000 jobs it is supposed to create somehow over three years. Don’t believe me? – Check back in May.