Posts Tagged ‘Wayne Arthurs’
Ontario Liberals Being Blown Away in Scarborough
Ontario Energy Minister Brad Duguid’s re-election hopes in Scarborough Centre threatened by plummeting Liberal support in Scarborough brought on by Green Energy Act opposition and his failed industrial wind strategy.
A recent poll released by Forum Research showed some very interesting numbers for the City of Toronto. When voters were asked to indicate which political party they’d support in the October 2011 election, the Liberals held a 26% to 24% lead over the PCs among Toronto voters. This is a statistical dead heat and critical because the Liberals currently have 18 of 22 seats in Toronto, while the NDP hold the remaining four.
The field work on this poll was conducted days before Mayor Rob Ford threatened to unleash ‘Ford Nation’ on Premier Dalton McGuinty if the Premier doesn’t give in to the City’s financial demands. Taking a look at the breakdowns among Toronto voters, it becomes clear, the move away from the Liberals isn’t be driven by Mayor Ford, at least yet.
Take Etobicoke for instance. Not only is this Mayor Ford’s home base, but it also represents his strongest part of the city by way of percentage of vote. The Liberals hold all three seats in Etobicoke at present and are leading the PCs by 10% (34% to 24%) making Etobicoke the Liberals strongest pocket in Toronto. These two facts combine would suggest the Liberals slide in independent from Mayor Ford’s strength with voters.
In Scarborough – my home town and an area I’ve been politically active for years as a former Liberal organizer and now in a grassroots issue based capacity that has me attacking the Liberals, the Ontario Liberals hold six of six seats, and are currently 8% behind the PCs (22% to 30%). By way of percentage of vote and real seat count, this probably represents the PCs largest opportunity for a break through in the City of Toronto.
Brad Duguid (Scarborough Centre – Minister of Energy), Margarett Best (Scarborough Guildwood – Minister of Health Promotion), Lorenzo Berardinetti (Scarborough Southwest), Wayne Arthurs (Pickering Scarborough East) each represent ridings that have elected a member of the incoming government in 1987, 1990, 1995, 1999, 2003, 2007. That’s a six election run, and in the 1985 election when the PCs won a minority, but the Liberals governed with the support of the NDP Scarborough Centre elected a PC member, Scarborough East (now Guildwood and Pickering Scarborough East) elected a Liberal and Scarborough West (now Southwest) elected a New Democrat.
Besides having a tendency to move with provincial trends, the Ontario Liberals in Scarborough have been on the receiving end of growing attacks in response to Dalton McGuinty’s decision to name call Scarborough residents, – attacking our community by name in bringing down the Green Energy Act to deny our rights. Brad Duguid, Margarett Best, Wayne Arthurs and Lorenzo Berardinetti have all been hearing from angry constituents, who I’m proud to say we’ve been effectively organizing around a very simple message – ‘defeat those who don’t stand for you’. Incidentally none of these party whipped Liberals have been.
33% of Scarborough voters are undecided, which is significant because it’s the highest undecided rate in the City. This also indicates the Liberals are going to have a real problem getting Brad Duguid, Margarett Best, Lorenzo Berardinetti and Wanye Arthurs re-elected. With the industrial wind issue alive and well on the ground I’m certain this will only get worse for them as we get closer and closer to the polls.
In conclusion, I agree with Former Liberal Finance Minister Sobera who said he didn’t believe Ford was the cause of the Liberals position in the polls, and former Progressive Conservative Minister Elizabeth Witmer who believed the Liberals energy policy is killing their chances of re-election all around the province. Between now and October 6th 2011, Brad Duguid and members of the government are going to have a choice – continue to stand for industrial wind until the dying hours of this government, or abandon this failed energy policy, put in place a full moratorium on all wind development and hope the government can survive it’s date with democracy.
No Comments »A Number Ontario Liberal MPPs May Not Be Smart, But Are Either Brave or Stupid
Yesterday over a hundred members of Wind Concerns Ontario rallied at the Legislature to call on the government to pass MPP Murdoch’s motion seeking a proper health study into the impacts of industrial wind turbine development on the health of residents. This is pretty simple stuff, something case law and Supreme Court hearings, and virtually all regulations except the Green Energy Act would recognize as being a reasonable step.
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.
18 Comments »Wait a Minute – Smitherman DEFENDS Energy NIMBYism now?
So let me get this straight… Residents of Scarborough and their three Ontario Liberal lap dogs ’representatives’ (this is in quotations because I hear this is what they’re supposed to do, but fail to see any evidence of it happening) are told to sit down and shut up when they legitimately oppose environmental concerns and breaches of law committed by Toronto Hydro as part of their plan to install turbines, but Minister and MPP Bartolucci of Sudbury can get away with totally supporting nuclear power, but opposing waste being stored in his constituency? Isn’t that the essence of NIMBY? ‘Sure it’s a great idea, but not in my constituency’ – that’s NIMBY right?
He’s even allowed to cite ‘landscape’ – read aesthetics in opposing this plan and gets away with saying, he thinks its a great idea to build nuclear plants, so long as Sudbury does not have to deal with spent nuclear fuel. What a totally ridiculous proposition. Meanwhile in Scarborough there isn’t enough wind to create energy, and yet we’re still expected to live with the health and environmental impacts without proper review and tolerate a law breaking, totally ignorant proponent that doesn’t have a clue what it’s doing.
The opposition of Guildwood residents to Toronto Hydro’s breaches of law, and total disregard for health and environmental impacts saw us insulted by the Premier and his Deputy and a law passed with a clause the Premier said was designed to block communities like mine from participating in democratic decision making.
What’s more – that Nuclear power Bartolucci so willingly supports being built on the shores of Lake Ontario – hundreds of miles from his precious home, kilometres from mine, and with legitimate impacts on the Lake my community lives on, and receives its drinking water from. Could anyone be a more irresponsible in pushing public policy than this?
Liberal friends in Scarborough Guildwood, including those very close to Minister Best – who was publicly silent on our community’s behalf and failed to even attempt to publicly represent our views – tried to convince me that she couldn’t because she was in Cabinet and didn’t have the ability to speak out against the government. I said I thought she could, and offered to help her and her office develop the messaging that would allow her to stand between government and community to see our issues heard publicly, without getting her thrown out of Cabinet. They didn’t disagree, they just never took me up on it. Liberals were afraid big bad George would get her if she did.
Smitherman has come out in defense of Bartolucci’s blatant NIMBYism – even though Smitherman doesn’t believe Bartolucci has valid points.
‘Energy Minister George Smitherman said he doesn’t share Bartolucci’s reservations, but defended the comments, saying his colleague “is allowed to be a local MPP” as well as a cabinet minister.‘ Critics question Liberal’s energy plan – CTV May 26 2009
It was made quite clear to me that under this Liberal government Scarborough Guildwood is not entitled to a local MPP who also serves as a Cabinet Minister. My Liberal friends in Scarborough Guildwood can continue to get upset when I raise this point privately, and now very publicly in the face of total hypocrisy, but voters don’t care of their MPP gets a car with a driver, a bigger staff and more money – they want a voice and if the incumbent won’t provide it, elections will change who that representative is, and the perks of Cabinet will be lost anyways.
If the opposition parties get candidate selection and fundraising right, this will be the case in Scarborough Guildwood – and George Smitherman’s ‘playing to the crowd’ approach to public speaking will continue to serve up gems to seal the fate of those who cowered when it came time to vote for or against the Green Energy Act, a vote Margarett Best, Lorezno Berardinetti and Wayne Arthurs – spent hiding in the hall so they didn’t have to go on record either way.
I’ll never understand how it feels to hop into bed with folks whose ethical backbone is so weak they are OK knowingly killing family pets because it would be inconvienant to solve the crux of the problem, and so ignorant of their own equipment they assure parents children are safe – a couple days before electrucuting a dozen small children. Ladies and Gentleman this is the corporate mentality at Toronto Hydro Energy Services (THES Legal Department – again feel free to fact check and request any inaccuracies be corrected. Naturally we know these things are provable… so same deal as before? you read, you fume, and don’t reply?) vampire Personally, I couldn’t do it literally or figuratively – yet I know quite well there are folks in Dalton McGuinty’s government who are quite comfortable with this, including George Smitherman, Toronto Hydro’s prime defender and ‘knee capper’ (George, your swipes at mine didn’t take).
Toronto Hydro’s illegal application, lies and attempt at scientific review that would probably not meet the rigor of a primary school science fair is now under review of the Ontario Minister of Environment and the officials at the Ministry of Natural Resources. They have the opportunity to end it here and force Toronto Hydro to do a real review and recognize they are going to cause significant environmental damage and regardless of how dense Joyce McLean and Jack Simpson are – something will have to be done to address it.
I’ll start making bets that come 2011 – Toronto Hydro Energy Services will be no closer to putting turbines in the Lake off the Scarborough Bluffs, and the three swing ridings that are currently in envy of the people of Sudbury’s representation, will be changing hands, proving that bad public policy is also bad politics. Hey if George Smitherman can just keep talking, he’ll practically write the flyers for opposition parties.
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