Comments on Bill 34, the Act…

Comments on Bill 34, the Act to Repeal the Green Energy Act.

The White Pines Wind Project poses significant risks to an exceptionally environmentally sensitive habitat within Prince Edward County. This October and November alone, I personally witnessed thousands of birds flying south, directly through the project site - dodging through the four hastily erected industrial wind turbines - on their annual trek to wintering habitats in the United States. I can personally attest to the ongoing presence of the endangered little brown bat within the project area. The Blanding's turtle habit was severely disrupted by the work that has been done to date - immediate and complete removal of all materials related to the project components - above and below ground - is essential to remediate this delicate environment. Every single element of the project must be cleanly and immediately removed from the site to ensure that future generations will not attempt to rebuild within the environmentally sensitive South Shore of Prince Edward County.

Furthermore, Bill 34 reinstates the ability of municipalities to have input into the siting of power generation facilities, but does little else to eliminate the politicization of the electricity industry by the McGuinty and Wynne governments or to remediate the disastrous impact that the Green Energy Act (“GEA”) has had on residents of rural Ontario.

In a news release dated 20 September 2018 announcing the legislation to repeal the GEA, Monte McNaughton is quoted as saying: ”The Green Energy Act allowed the previous government to trample over the rights of families, businesses and municipalities across rural Ontario”.

There are over 2,500 Industrial Wind Turbines (“IWTs”) installed while the GEA was in effect that continue to operate in Ontario. The rights of the families, businesses and municipalities on whom this mandatory industrialization has been inflicted continue to be trampled and Bill 34 does nothing to change this.

The extensive Record of evidence filed in the legal proceeding CCSAGE v. Director, et al. in Ottawa Court file DC 15-2162 provides evidence that IWTs:
• have been erected in breach of mandatory geographic setbacks and noise limits
• emit infrasound and electromagnetic pollution that causes illness in residents
• render homes unfit for habitation
• create “dirty electricity” that impedes livestock operations
• pollute waterways and ground water with soil, shale and poisonous minerals
• sterilize adjacent lands by preventing building within their setback shadow
• vandalize roads, landscape, habitat and species on abutting lands during
construction
• open gravel pits, build wharves and erect cement batching plants without any
environmental studies
• incur fires, tower collapses and other dangers to residents of abutting lands
• depreciate the market value of abutting lands or render them unsaleable

The shame of this environmental degradation is that the former Ontario government was complicit in it. Voters in the recent provincial election looked to the PC Party to restore their rights and remedy these wrongs. On 11 October 2018 MPP (PC) Bill Walker of Bruce/Grey Counties addressed a meeting of the Multi Municipal Wind Turbine Working Group in Chesley, Ontario. Mr. Walker said that residents cannot expect any relief from IWTs for at least 1 to 2 years because the new government is just too busy doing other things.

This is not good enough. There are residents of rural Ontario who cannot sleep in their own houses, or drink from their own wells, or build on their own land, or sell their properties, and this situation has been going on since the enactment of the GEA in 2009. Repealing this ill-advised and punitive legislation should include measures to deal with the havoc it has caused.