Posts Tagged ‘Wind Energy’
“Wind Concerns Ontario’s Winds of Change Tour Launched in Owen Sound”
Wind Concerns Ontario has successfully launched the latest province-wide organizing effort of 2011, this time with a strong election focus. Over the next forty or so days, Wind Concerns Ontario members in sixty seven ridings will be mobilized to actively work to defeat Liberal incumbents, and candidates in their respective ridings. I look forward to personally visiting over two dozen ridings to hold rallies, canvas blitzes and other events.
We pulled out of Toronto last night around midnight and didn’t roll into Owen Sound until 3am. I was pleased to visit the AM 560 CFOS studio again at 9am to talk with Manny Paiva about the problems with Dalton McGuinty’s industrial wind schemes. By 10:30am over fifty members of Wind Concerns Ontario groups from around Bruce-Grey Owen Sound had come to the pavilion at the very beautiful Harrison Park to formally launch Winds of Change, talk about the importance of the coming election and the need to elect good MPPs who will represent rural Ontario.
Although Bill Walker was unable to attend in person, he was kind enough to send a statement to be read on his behalf to the folks who were present and it was very well received. To make it clear that Wind Concerns Ontario means business about doing its part to ensure winds of change help blow the McGuinty Liberals from Queen’s Park, many of those who came for the morning went for a canvas after lunch.
I had a couple of other interviews about the Winds of Change tour, followed by a quiet afternoon to catch up on Wind Concerns Ontario stuff.
Tomorrow Bob Rae is going to be in Owen Sound, so we’ve decided to attend his event because as a former Federal Liberal Riding President, who did not vote Liberal for the first time federally in the last election, I’m curious how he can reconcile his desire to rebuild the Federal Liberals in rural Ontario, and support the re-election of Dalton McGuinty, whose government has ended local democracy, destroyed property values, harmed human health and the environment while selling out rural Ontario largely to Ontario Liberal Party donors and industrial wind welfare recipients.
If I get the chance to ask Rae, I will be sure to share how that goes.
London Free Press: Anti-Wind Turbine Activists Take Aim at Ballot Boxes
By John Miner – London Free Press
After losing one round in court to the McGuinty government, anti-wind-turbine activists can sniff political victory in the air.
The wind energy issue has turned red hot in rural areas and there are enough people angry to bring down Liberal candidates, said John Laforet, president of Wind Concerns Ontario.
“Wind is a far hotter issue on the local level than anything else. The government did it to themselves because they took away local control,” Laforet said on the weekend during a break at Wind Concerns annual meeting in London.
Formed as a coalition in October 2008 with 22 organizations, the group that opposes wind farms now has 57 members.
“Our members are in 35 counties. We think we can play a significant role through direct political action,” Laforet said.
Wind Concerns Ontario is calling for a moratorium on all industrial wind projects until a health study is completed on their impact.
Once that’s done, the coalition wants the McGuinty government to return authority for approving wind turbine development to municipalities, something it stripped in the Green Energy Act.
That was a political blunder, according to Laforet, who was a Liberal party member and former Liberal riding president.
“I resigned to fight them on this issue,” he said.
Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak has pledged to return control over wind farms to municipalities.
Laforet said the coalition hasn’t endorsed any political party and won’t until platforms have been released.
“We are in talks with the Green party, the NDP and the PCs,” he said.
The anti-wind-turbine activists lost a court challenge in March over how close wind turbines can be from homes.
The court ruled the Ontario government had followed the proper process when it decided the turbines could be 550 metres away.
That ruling may be appealed.
While wind-turbine opponents met Saturday, the Canadian government announced it was investing $117,000 in a start-up company in Middlesex that will build foundation bases for wind turbines and solar installations.
DrillTech Canada is expected to create eight full-time jobs in its first two years of operation.
E-mail john.miner@sunmedia.ca, or follow Johnatlfpress on Twitter.
1 Comment »London Free Press:Wind foes blow heat on Energy Minister
Live chat on lfpress.com draws hundreds
By Jonathan Sher
Last Updated: December 13, 2010 4:12pm
It was the one question many asked of Ontario Energy Minister Brad Duguid — and one he dodged for the better part of an hour.
During a live chat on lfpress.com, Duguid was asked again and again by readers if he’d be willing to live next to wind turbines of the sort he is pushing across the province.
The question was asked so often it was raised a few more times by the live chat moderator, city editor Greg Van Moorsel.
But while Duguid wrote much about the benefits of wind power — more than 600 words over the course of 11 responses — he wrote nothing of whether he personally would be willing to live next to a turbine.
That led to much frustration among some readers who accused Duguid of ignoring concerns and simply repeating the exact same phrases he uses whenever he defends wind power and Ontario’s Green Energy Act.
“(The minister) can’t speak without cue cards,” wrote Maureen Anderson, an organizer of an umbrella organization representing dozens of anti-wind groups across Ontario, Wind Concerns Ontario.
It was the head of Wind Concerns Ontario, John Laforet, who joined Duguid in a live chat in which readers could write questions and comments.
The event generated so many responses that only a fraction could be posted in the chat.
While most who posted were opposed to wind energy, the split was closer among those who watched the chat and replied to online questions about wind power.
What was bracingly clear was this: Those on both sides of the debate believe wind power will be a force in the next Ontario election in Oct. 2011, with 84% responding to an online question saying turbines would affect how they voted.
Here is a link to the transcript from today’s chat
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