{"id":8433,"date":"2017-10-09T20:55:11","date_gmt":"2017-10-10T00:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/?p=8433"},"modified":"2018-01-15T10:58:19","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T15:58:19","slug":"ontario-liberals-protecting-their-own-politicians-bullying-the-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/?p=8433","title":{"rendered":"Ontario Liberals: protecting their own politicians, and bullying the public"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It has been clear for too long that Ontario&#8217;s environmental assessment process is a farce. For example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The MOECC accepted the proponent&#8217;s Environmental Impact Study, which claimed a net benefit, even though it didn&#8217;t even try to assess the negative impacts.<\/li>\n<li>For their environmental assessment, the proponent made many commitments that their proposed generating station would not rise above road level, it would not have a larger footprint, and it would not impact heritage landscapes. They will not honour any of these.<\/li>\n<li>For their proposal, the proponent made commitments such as they would not impact in-water recreation. They would not honour these either.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But now we know what kind of farce it is \u2013 a political farce. Look at the status of the following seven controversial proposed electricity generation projects:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The first three, in ridings held by Liberals were cancelled.<\/li>\n<li>The next four, all in ridings held by the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, have been approved by the Ontario Liberal government.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"25%\"><strong>Proposed project<\/strong><\/td>\n<td width=\"25%\"><strong>Local MPP at the time<\/strong><\/td>\n<td><strong>Status<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Oakville gas-fired generating station<\/td>\n<td><strong>Liberal<\/strong>,\u00a0Kevin Flynn, Oakville<\/td>\n<td><strong>Cancelled<\/strong> by Ontario Liberal government.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Mississauga gas-fired generating station<\/td>\n<td><strong>Liberal<\/strong>, Charles Sousa, Mississauga South<\/td>\n<td><strong>Cancelled<\/strong>\u00a0by Ontario Liberal government as part of an election promise.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Thunder Bay wind turbines (Big Thunder wind project)<\/td>\n<td><strong>Liberal<\/strong>,\u00a0Bill Mauro,\u00a0Thunder Bay-Atikokan<\/td>\n<td><strong>Cancelled<\/strong> by MOECC.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>South River hydro-electric generating station<\/td>\n<td><strong>PC<\/strong>, Norm Miller, Parry Sound-Muskoka<\/td>\n<td><strong>Approved<\/strong> by MOECC, currently in operation.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Almonte hydro-electric generating station<\/td>\n<td><strong>PC<\/strong>,\u00a0Jack MacLaren, Carleton-Mississippi Mills<\/td>\n<td><strong>Approved<\/strong> by MOECC, currently under construction.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Collingwood wind turbines (Fairview wind project)<\/td>\n<td><strong>PC<\/strong>, Jim Wilson, Simcoe-Grey<\/td>\n<td><strong>Approved<\/strong> by MOECC, but cancelled after six teams of lawyers and more than $1,800,000 of legal fees for appeal to the Environmental Review Tribunal, that agreed the eight 45-storey-tall wind turbines too close to two airports would be a danger to human life \u2013 which the MOECC had refused to accept.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Bala hydro-electric generating station<\/td>\n<td><strong>PC<\/strong>, Norm Miller, Parry Sound-Muskoka<\/td>\n<td>Environmental Assessment <strong>approved<\/strong> by MOECC, who have stated they expect to issue the required Environmental Compliance Approval &#8220;in the near future&#8221;.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\nClearly, there are political forces here which are subverting the MOECC from fulfilling its mandate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It has been clear for too long that Ontario&#8217;s environmental assessment process is a farce. For example: The MOECC accepted the proponent&#8217;s Environmental Impact Study, which claimed a net benefit, even though it didn&#8217;t even try to assess the negative impacts. For their environmental assessment, the proponent made many commitments that their proposed generating station <a href='https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/?p=8433' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background","category-3-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8433"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8616,"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8433\/revisions\/8616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savethebalafalls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}