Minister of Energy tells us to “Follow the Bouncing Ball”

Ontario's Liberal Government must love the fact that Ontario's media are focused on both Municipal and Federal scandals and have basically relegated the Provincial scandals to the second or third pages of the print media. It matters not that aides to the former Premier, Dalton McGuinty, deleted e-mails or that McGuinty testified before the Ontario Justice Committee denying all knowledge on the costs of the gas plant moves!  It presented the perfect opportunity for the Minister of Energy, Bob Chiarelli to make an enigmatic announcement about the feed-in tariff (FIT) program. In this writer's humble opinion the announcement appears to have been contrived by the Liberals strategic advisers, the Sussex Group, in a concerted effort to dupe the public.

The Chiarelli announcement pretends that the Liberals plan to allow “increasing local control over future renewable energy projects” but if one reads the press release it become obvious that central planning (reminiscent of the former USSR) remains firmly in the hands of the Energy Ministry. The release stated;

“It will require energy planners and developers to work directly with municipalities to identify appropriate locations and site requirements for any future large renewable energy project.”

The foregoing is not a change from the existing regulations which required consultation with local municipalities and offered extra points to the developer if the municipality came onside. What the Chiarelli announcement didn't do is to provide the municipalities with the power to simply say “we are not willing hosts”, which is what 36 (so far) of approximately 90 municipalities, (identified as; sites with good wind by the Ontario Power Authority ) have said, by passing by-laws proclaiming that phrase.Read more »
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