Posts Tagged ‘Scarborough Bluffs Wind Farm’
Update on the Green Energy Act, Toronto Hydro's Antics and the Great Work Happening on the Ground in Guildwood
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.
6 Comments »Guildwood Residents Fight Back – Plan Their Own Community Meeting to Share Information Hydro Refuses To
Guildwood residents are sick and tired of the treatment they have been receiving from Queen’s Park and the folks at Toronto Hydro Energy Services. The amount of bogus statements coming out of each organization warrants residents taking matters into their own hands and organizing an informative, open, meeting where folks with questions can come to find answers. Members of the community who have spent months researching this to help make an informed decision, can now share their concerns with folks who will be more apt to listen.
Not a single politician will cross a stage, no paid activists will be able to shout residents down and Joyce McLean and her friends at Hydro will not be given the opportunity to lie to residents or deny them the very basic information they have been seeking out.
The lesson here is, if you try to stifle debate and deny your opponents an equal footing – they will get louder, stronger and work outside the system for the change they seek. Bill 150 denies us our democratic rights, but the Constitution of this great country protects freedom of assembly and expression. Not even Dalton McGuinty and his paternalistic approach to complex government policy or George Smitherman’s bully tactics can take that away. The government has decided to listen to the wind companies that donate tens of thousands annually to the Ontario Liberal Party, their lobbyists and interest groups, and opted to deny us our right to participate. We’ve taken note, and if the Green Energy Act passes as is, I promise that folks like us will most certainly deny some current and prospective Liberal MPPs the privilege of participating in debate at Queen’s Park. Unlike moneyed interests, it is the citizens this bill steamrolls that have that enjoy Suffrage, and we intend to use it if necessary.
I’d like to invite all Scarborough Bluffs residents the opportunity to join us at our informal session on March 29th 2009. The details are below.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT
Community Round Table on Wind Turbines
Sunday, March 29 from 1-3 p.m.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier Collegiate Institute
145 Guildwood Parkway
A group of volunteers will provide information collected from doctors, engineers and other experts to give people a better understanding about wind energy and the issues surrounding the controversial proposal to erect an industrial wind generation development near the Scarborough Bluffs.
The public is invited to learn more and ask questions on topics relating to wind turbines. Information will be available about:
- Health Issues
- The Economics & Engineering Behind Wind Energy
- Ontario’s Proposed Green Energy Act
- The Local Wind Study (Anemometer) Proposal and Existing Wind Information
- How Turbines Affect Wildlife and Ecology
- Wind Turbine Experiences – Living Near a Wind Farm
- Alternative Renewable Energy Sources
This is an informal, drop-in event organized by concerned citizens and the Save the Toronto Bluffs Association.
More details at www.savethetorontobluffs.com
No Comments »The Entrenched Corporate Irresponsibility of Toronto Hydro Energy Services
These guys represent to me the contaminated lake bed sediment at the bottom of the corporate responsibility barrel.
If it wasn’t bad enough they have purposely denied residents their right to participate in a consultation process on three occasions, before Minister Smitherman and the Premier McGuinty stepped in to take over trying to land the body blows on the community, they’re also now refusing to release what is very public information.
The Toronto Star said of Mr. Smitherman that “George Smitherman couldn’t find the political high road with a state-of-the-art GPS”. Well I’m not sure that Chris Tyrrell, Jack Simpson and Joyce McLean at Toronto Hydro Energy Services would even be capable of turning on the GPS to search for this mystery road none of them seems interested in traveling on.
The fact is there is not sufficient wind for the proposed site where Toronto Hydro Energy Services would like to construct an offshore wind project. They have demonstrated they have no concern about the possible environmental impacts it is sure to have on Ontario’s drinking water, lake ecology and certainly on shoreline erosion. They also don’t care what the community thinks, or what it will cost.
Joyce McLean failed miserably in trying to sell this ridiculous project. Her mixture of lies and misleading facts blew up so badly, residents came out of the woodwork to fight Toronto Hydro Energy Services off and stand up for the environment and the other things they, at Hydro, clearly don’t care about. By conscripting Minister Smitherman and Premier McGuinty to fight their battles for them after McLean failed to do so – she’s now put them in a situation where an automatic three seats in Toronto have now become competitive and there is no way Smitherman could realistically expect to be able to win a Mayor’s race after his commentary on the good people of Scarborough, to which even now – no apology has been made. So now that it has been recognized that Toronto Hydro’s “Director of Strategic Services” is more like the orchestrator of unmitigated public relations disasters – she’s itching for another fight. She chose to turn a very simple request from me into a gong show.
I asked for some public information last Monday, it’s Wednesday (eight business days later) and the back and forth continues, with the bureaucrat at the Ministry of Natural Resources who will eventually rubber stamp whatever BS McLean and Anne Mometer throw together and send their way, being cc’d on everything. I warned Hydro – starting an unnecessary fight would result in a public complaint on my part.
I’ve asked Chris Tyrrell, the President of Toronto Hydro Energy Services to step in and provide some adult supervision to Ms. McLean as she continues to put Toronto Hydro Energy Services into yet another totally indefensible position. I certainly hope he demonstrates being in possession of an ounce of integrity and common sense that he may be able to share with McLean to prevent another embarrassing round that Toronto Hydro Energy Services has no hope of winning.
How can anyone expect taking away community’s rights to opposition is a good thing when as it is, the organizations that are so hard done by are already denying information they are legally obligated to release. Pending Tyrrell’s response, or lack there of, I will disclose the emails that have gone back and forth for context.
Developing.
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