Local community hydro expert Richard Johnson and key member of STOP sent in the following comment. It is published unchanged. You can also read his Letter of the Week from June 26, 2009 in the Mississauga News on the same subject.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views of the AURORA CITIZEN.
Mayor Phyllis Morris and Sue Walmer of MegaWHAT and EAC both apparently drive SUV’s and rumour has it that they may well be sympathetic to the Conservatives as a few photos seem to suggest, which may all be well and fine with the exception that it also seems to fly in the face of the “green” image that they are so diligently trying to portray. So which is it, are they green or are they blue?
Sue Walmer refused to even discuss the power supply issue for three and a half years despite many attempts to engage her and EAC in the important issues being discussed in our community, before she then inexplicably co-authored MegaWHAT’s ridiculously poorly founded position statement that both Mayor Morris and “shadow Mayor” MacEachern also appeared to align with through an obviously preconceived and apparently contrived Council resolution related to the same issue.
Clearly none of them even read, or at the very least understand the environmental assessment studies or the OPA needs analysis related to the local power supply issue before they adopted their hard line stance on these long standing issues.
Mayor Morris refused to permit council to become well informed before any vote was taken on the power supply issue despite the many offers made to educate council by numerous well informed people. None of them even came close to demonstrating an understanding of the issues or the viable alternatives.
For some of us, including the Town of Markham, who spent $750,000 on communications, technical and environmental law experts in Aurora’s defence on these very same power supply issues, it was hard to watch. Mayor Morris, Sue Walmer and Council rejected the need for a critically required gas fired peaking plant to be built anywhere in Northern York Region or the province for that matter; despite the fact that the peaking plant was ironically required in order to incorporate wind or solar power solutions into the power grid as well as to protect our power reliability of Aurora, while at the same time reducing coal fired emissions in the province. Now these same people apparently all support a less environmentally friendly and a more expensive (per kilowatt) diesel powered UPS generator for the Town Hall!
Go figure. It just seems to go from bad to worse all of the time. I have to assume that the thinking may be that if you say you are a well informed defender of the environment or an energy expert enough times some people might actually believe you.
There is certainly no shortage of smoke and mirrors in Aurora at any event. Given the mixed signals being sent it really does make you wonder where they might stand with regards to the need for environmental assessments at all given that to date they seem to have ignored so much professional and well informed input from the likes of the Ontario Power Authority, OEB, IESO, APPrO, power company engineers and environmental assessment experts in any number of areas.
Through their mis-handling of environmental and planning issues locally they have arguably missed a significant opportunity to be constructively engaged in the power planning, environmental assessment and procurement processes. Under their leadership Aurora, the Region and even the province have missed the proverbial boat on smart growth infrastructure planning and sadly King, Mississauga the greater province are now paying a big price as a direct result.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that socio-economic impacts and other environmental concerns are often not addressed when we have so many governments, starting from the local governments upwards, that don’t even seem to care about the facts or the viable options before they adopt their politically expedient stance on any given issue.
It is no surprise to me that the province has passed legislation to allow them to impose power supply infrastructure on unwilling host communities given the clear lack of professional and good faith co-operation we have witnessed from our local municipalities and most notably from Aurora. If I have learned anything in the past five years politics and planning are all about spin, self interest and money at the end of the day, don’t kid yourself.
From my perspective, based on what we know from our local experience, it would be enlightening to know where Mayor Morris, shadow Mayor MacEachern and EAC stand with regards to the Globe & Mail news story quoted below. It sure does make you wonder where we are headed.
Ottawa could waive thousands more environmental assessments, (abbreviated quotes)
Martin Mittelstaedt and Dawn Walton, Toronto, Calgary — From Friday’s Globe and Mail, Friday, Jun. 26, 2009
The number of federally funded infrastructure projects exempted from environmental assessments could soar to nearly 14,000, up from the 2,000 figure the Conservatives announced in March.
The new figure was introduced earlier this week in a Federal Court of Canada case by the Sierra Club of Canada challenging the legality of exemptions. It was based on a disclosure Ottawa made in the Canada Gazette last month indicating that up to an additional 12,000 projects will be approved under the infrastructure program.
The new total suggests the federal cabinet’s decision to limit environmental assessments on infrastructure spending will have far broader effects than was initially thought. The exemption applies to a wide range of projects receiving federal money and includes highway widening, bridges and sewage treatment plants, but also ventures with little or no environmental impacts, such as bike trails and social-housing construction.
“Certainly we were appalled when it was at 2,000 and now we’re at a sevenfold increase. That’s just immense,” said Justin Duncan, a lawyer at Ecojustice, a public interest legal organization that is representing Sierra Club in the case. “Ballooning up to 14,000 certainly provides greater fodder for our case that the federal government is getting out of the [environmental assessment] game.”…
Speaking to reporters in Calgary, federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice, defended the exemption plan, saying the government “looked at the kinds of projects in the past where environmental assessments had resulted in delay, but not necessarily any improvements and where we felt that duplicative environmental assessments would not be in our best interests.”
Use the envelope and pencil icons immediately below to forward this post to friends or leave a comment.
Aurora Citizen 