In today’s Financial Post, a letter responding to Parker Gallant’s excellent “Energy rules change in the wind” on August 4th (read the article at http://windconcernsontario.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/energy-rules-change-in-the-wind/) that reveals some interesting linkages between the Ontario Liberal Party and the renewable energy industry. Elsewhere in the news today an announcement that China’s largest wind power developer is buying into a 100-MW wind project near Melancthon (poor Melancthon which already has hundreds of turbines) because of Ontario’s “supportive policies.” That means SUBSIDIES from taxpayers.
This letter pertains to a peak power hydro project but the environmental concerns and the political connections are worrying.
McGuinty’s peaking power fiasco
Re: “Energy rules change in the wind,” Parker Gallant, Aug. 4
Excellent article! I am wondering if more investigation and articles should be undertaken by the FP on the misguided Green Energy Act leading up to the election. This topic must the most underreported McGuinty fiasco yet.
Our group, the French River Delta Association, is fighting a peaking power hydro proposal known as the Allen & Struthers Project, undertaken by Xeneca Power. This company, which counts Arnold Chan, former executive assistant to McGuinty as a VP legal affairs, is about to destroy our nature preserve at the French River Provincial Park.
We have the science and the economics that say these peaking power plants are very wrong. Xeneca Power is totally funded by OP Trust, the pension fund of OPSU. Directors of OP Trust are appointed by McGuinty. OPSU members need to know where their pension investment is going.
The Green Energy Act allows proponents to provide their own environmental assessments, pay lip service to local stakeholders, and to if necessary “harass, harm or kill” any endangered/protected species in the way. The local MNR/MOE experts entrusted to protect our land and waters have been brutally silenced by Queen’s Park. The proponents of these projects are not being held to the same standard as you and I.
We are one of 38 proposed peaking power hydro dams that will hold back water from Georgian Bay, which is already suffering from record declining water levels. Our site is the spawning ground of many species of Georgian Bay fish. The water will only be released when the profit margin is right to generate power. These rivers will be all but dry the rest of the time. See Xeneca’s only completed power plant, at McGraw Falls near Earlton, Ont. The falls are bone dry most of the time.
Max Brugger, Stouffville, Ont.
Contact us at northgowerwindactiongroup@yahoo.ca
Excellent article.
If only the taxpayers would ope their eyes and see beyond the facade that is being presented by McGuinty and his possy.
Also check out “stop-mcguinty.com” and see what is going on behind closed doors.
McGuinty and more lies and corruption, its all we need for the next 4 years