Smith to hand deliver wind petitions

Having compiled a mountain of public input at his office over the last two months, Prince Edward-Hastings MPP Todd Smith is headed to Toronto to hand deliver it.
The EBR comment period was originally scheduled to end on Jan. 31 but Smith managed to get the public consultation period extended to a new Feb. 19 deadline. Smith is headed to Toronto Wednesday to go into lock up for the release of the Drummond Report, but will be dropping off correspondence from Prince Edward County while he’s in the city.

Smith maintains the Ministry of Environment poorly managed the EBR comment period.
“First, the ministry assigned a Project Evaluator it knew would not be able to see the project through to the end of the consultation period. Then it was revealed Tuesday that the ministry had posted the wrong postal code for the EBR on its website – which could create an issue for those County residents who mailed submissions. The EBR’s website has also gone down several times in the last week of the consultation period,” Smith said.”This kind of careless disregard for information necessary to the process shows how the Ministry has failed to take the public consultation process seriously.
“The people of Prince Edward County have suffered no end of insults from the Ministry of Environment in this process…The Minister bears sole responsibility for how badly this has been bungled.
“The Minister should lose his job over how poorly his Ministry oversaw this project. He has misled the people of the County into believing that this public consultation process actually welcomed public input. His ministry has seemingly done everything possible to prevent the voice of the County from being heard,” said Smith.