Tom Millar has written two excellent articles whcih have been published in the September 2, 2010 issue of Muskoka Today, read them here.
The first article notes that the Township of Muskoka Lakes paid for an 8-page lawyer’s opinion which appears to state that the Green Energy Act does reduce the Township’s ability to stop the proposed project to build a hydro-electric power station at the Bala falls.
- However, this opinion does not apply to this project since the project requires land from the District Municipality of Muskoka, and the Green Energy Act does not provide any right of expropriation (as noted here).
- But Tom Millar’s article goes further, and provides confirmation from the Director of the Environmental Assessment and Approvals Branch of Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment that being a waterpower project, it is separately regulated (a summary of the process is here).
So our misinformed politicians do seem to be mistakenly under the impression that they have no power to stop this proposed project.
But wait, there’s more…
Tom Millar’s second article notes that the Township council did not honour their committment (made in front of hundreds of people at the Town Hall meeting August 14, 2010) to make a statement that they do not support this proposed project. Instead, our politicians simply repeated what they already stated; that they want the province to decide what to do (by requesting that the project be elevated to requiring further study). Our elected politicians should be listening to their electorate and should represent their electorate’s views – and simply state that they do not support this proposed project.