House defeats second motion for wind moratorium
Administrator | Mar 10, 2012 | Comments 14
Prince Edward-Hastings MPP Todd Smith has spent the last three weeks in the legislature reading petitions supporting a moratorium on wind development in Ontario. In the end, a Private Members motion put to the House by Lisa Thompson, MPP for Huron-Bruce, called for a moratorium on further wind development until independent studies on the social and health impact of the projects were completed. The motion was defeated 45-28.
“There were 300 people in the gallery that came from all over Ontario, some from as far as the Soo with the hope that their MPPs would stand up for them,” Smith said. “You cannot believe how disappointed and angry those people were when they left the House. One woman said to me ‘the Liberals have abandoned us and the NDP are letting them get away with it’.”
More 10,000 signatures have been presented by Smith alone while many other opposition members have read identical petitions from their own ridings.
Thursday, Smith rose twice in the House to point out how the Liberal energy strategy is wreaking havoc in rural Ontario. In a members statement, Smith highlighted the case of Bancroft Light and Power, a renewable, green, 600 KW hydroelectric project on the York River.
“The project was put into receivership today by Infrastructure Ontario after the Ministry of Energy refused to grant an energy contract to the town that would be enough to cover the cost of generating power and still enable the town to pay off the loan Infrastructure Ontario wrote to refurbish the project in the first place,” Smith said.
“Nothing about the Liberal energy strategy makes sense. It’s driving up energy prices,” Smith said. “It’s putting companies out of business and it’s tearing apart rural communities. It’s even led to the shuttering of good projects like Bancroft Light and Power. I used to think the Premier was just reckless. Now it seems to me like he actively doesn’t care.”
Filed Under: Local News
Ezra Levant on McGuinty’s Wind Skyscrapers –
“McGuinty wants to build billions of dollars worth of wind turbines — to call them mere windmills is to mistake their scale. No mere flour mill requires a skyscraper-sized turbine on top of it, a blight that can be seen for miles. And, like the massive cathedrals of medieval times, McGuinty’s three-armed crosses are to be paid for with tithes, from the little people.”
To read more:
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/03/19/it-aint-feasible-being-green
Beth and Virginia, those of us who are concerned about the adverse effects of wind on health, property values, the natural environment, the local economy and municipal planning control CAN be bothered. So we’ll continue to challenge this ridiculous law until we are successful.
Ditto, Beth.
No, it’s not that we can’t argue, I can only speak for myself, but I sometimes just can’t be bothered. Anti-wind’s believe the way they do and Pro-wind’s maintain an opposite stance.
My it is quiet in the Windy’s corner! They always become silent when they can’t explain it away. A path of nonsense that will burden their children, grandchildren and all Ontarian’s from a financial, health and environmental perspective. This County’s beautiful landscape will be forever marred. All because we are easy targets to a warped ideology.
Here’s the link to the Financial Times article Ms.Lucas references:
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/03/15/ontarios-power-trip-wind-wastes-water-and-your-dollars/
There is a very interesting opinion peice in the National Post and the Financial Post today entitled: Ontario’s Power Trip: Wind wastes water – and your dollars, by Peter Gallant and Scott Luft. In the article they lay out very clearly what the costs of wind power are. The most shocking thing in the article is that Ontarian ratepayers could have saved a bundle if hydro electricity had not been sacrificed to wind power. Thats right, good old clean hydro power. And we have to give our tax payer cash to foreign owned companies like wpd at the expense of our Ontarion Power Generation. It is sheer madness when you consider the devastation to our natural heritage that these looming towers will wreek.
I notice Mr. Thompson is saying that there are only 60 IWTs on the way to the County. In just one area north of Westlake stretching from Sandbanks past Cherry Valley there are approved applications from six developers with many leasing options already in place, for as many as 150 IWTs. The only thing that will be unconstrained is the developers zealousness once the Ostrander and White Pines turbine construction has begun. These projects will most certainly be approved come hell or high water as the Liberal Government could not afford the many lawsuits from a moratorium on the approvals they have agreed to. They haven’t even answered, in violation of the law, to the lawsuit by Trillium, for the off shore moratorium, as of yet. And reducing the FIT subsidy will not effect these already approved IWT developments… besides, there is more than enough money to be made from Corporate investment tax breaks for “green energy”.
I note that Mr. Norman is saying the over 300 IWT’s are on the way to the County. My expectation is that we only have enough unconstrained land space for about 60. Nothing to debate but the truth will reveal itself in time.
Ihttp://www.amiando.com/ontariofitforum.html I understand Mayor Mertens is one of the speakers at the Ontario FIT forum. Does anyone know what his topic is and why he was invited?
“Everything Mr. McGuinty believed about alternative energy turned out to be spectacularly wrong.” – Margaret Wente
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/margaret-wente/ontarios-green-dream-was-just-a-fantasy/article2369422/
Jack, this is not actually a revelation… it was intended all along. All of the hundreds of Industrial Wind Turbine developments that are contracted for will go up in the next three years. We will have no say over them. We have won nothing in PEC. Get ready for over 300 IWTs PEC. They’re on there way.
Please read today,s Globe and Mail front page, Headline upper left hand corner. We may have started to turn the corner on this madness
Todd has really embraced this cause for us, we are lucky to have him working to bring some sanity to the issue of industrial wind.