Alliance between McGuinty Government and the Environmental and Industry Lobby Groups it supports with Funding!

We believe there should be a Public Inquiry into the direction the McGuinty Liberals have taken Ontario and their citizens over the past year and further regarding passage of the Green Energy Act, The Harmonized Sales Tax  and most recently the Cap and Trade Bill that has just been tabled.

All three of these legislative Acts are the results of a Government who is less than honest and forthright with their citizens.

By approving these Acts this present Government has displayed, among other things:

1. Conflicts of Interests with Industrial representatives that are now in a position through these Acts to make large amounts of profits at the expense of honest Ontario Taxpayers with no return for those taxpayers except higher costs in living.
2. Large Scale Destruction of Lands, Properties and Wildlife through unregulated Industrial Wind Generation .
3. Loss of Health and intentional lack of acknowledgment of Health Issuesthat have been proven to exist because of the above Wind Industrialization in residential areas.
4. Hostile and argumentative stance with any individual or group who challenges the Government’ actions that result in loss of property values and quality of life due to Wind Generation locations within residential areas of Rural Ontario.
5. Disregard for the Economic Health of Ontario by raising electrical rates beyond the ability of homeowners to pay for these increases. Along with the homeowners inability to afford these higher rates it is a threat for any new industry to locate in Ontario due to the high costs let alone be the already existing industry that will have to relocate to a cheaper area of the country to operate in a very competitive environment.
6. Destruction of the Real Estate Market come July of 2010 by adding an additional 32,000 dollars on the cost of a new home that no bank in Canada would offer mortgage coverage on. The Nova Scotia experiment that showed what an HST would do apparently is not a lesson that was studied by our present Government.
7. Disregard for Good Business Practices by allowing Industrial representatives set agendas for the Government who then uses the Industries studies to write the Laws and in effect accommodating the Industrial strategies over the good of the people.
8. Removal of Democratic Rights in the dismantling of the powers of individual Municipality’s Planning Acts in order to have total control of any development of Wind and Renewable Electrical Generation.
9. Removal of Responsible oversight of Environmental Assessments when it applies to Renewable Electrical Generation and the location of large Industrial sitings.

“The Devil is in the Details”

That phrase has been repeated with all three of these Acts, The GEA, The HST and The Cap and Trade Act. Not a good start! When the ordinary citizen hears that description of a Law as the introduction statement made by both the “Proponents and Opposition” then a “red flag” should be raised immediately!

The Green Energy Act or GEA as we will refer to it in the following description is based on the assumption that Global Warming or what has been rephrased as “Climate Change” will literally end our lives on this planet if it isn’t reversed. This hypothesis is the underlying premise behind the “New Environmentalism” that has taken hold of politicians and Industrialists world wide.

See: Green Agenda

Without going into details for now, generally the “Gang Green” (the above politicians and industrialists) have adopted what at one time was an honourable cause in the 60’s and 70’s to “save the planet” from over-consumption of natural resources and destruction of wild lands by Industrial consortiums. By assimilating the very words and initiatives of caring and responsible citizens and then turning the intentions of these people around 180 degrees they have effectively “cloaked” themselves as the “Saviours of the Planet”.

The only thing Green about these people are the billions of Green Backs that can be made off their re-written and insane rantings!

We will suffer the wrath of this policy in our everyday lives and homes and communities. The GEA was one of the fastest Bills to ever go through the Ontario Parliament. It only took 80 days from announcement to third reading and then passage. During the Standing Committee meetings where everyone who had something to say about how this Bill is good or bad was limited to only about one half of the number of common folk and groups who had applied to be heard. The Wind Industry appeared almost as much as the opponents did and even the Minister of Infrastructure was allowed to speak during the hearings so that he could put an exclamation mark on the fact that this Bill would go through regardless of valid opposition presentations.

Claims of Health Concerns that are related to the proximity of Wind Turbines being located within communities was the common thread of most complaints during these hearings but were not taken into consideration in the final written document. Claims of the deregulation of Planning Authority at the Municipal level would lead to less Democracy went unheeded. Claims that this Act would basically increase electricity rates, destroy economic development in Ontario and destroy natural wild lands went unheeded. In fact all the negative affects this Bill would have on the future of Ontario went unheeded. No positive gains whatsoever were ever presented by the Government with the implementation of this Bill 150.

If a Bill doesn’t improve the lifestyles and quality of life in communities across Ontario then WHY would it be pursued and passed so quickly? That is the question that this Government has to answer. It has been asked of the Government on countless occasions and to date there has been no response. A Public Inquiry would force some honest answers!

UPDATE August 17/09

Since the passage of Bill 150 the Green Energy Act we now find ourseleves facing a 23% increase in our Electricty Bill directly due to the Green Energy Act!

Here is the following MEDIA RELEASE!

Media Release

Hydro One is seeking permission from the Ontario Energy Board to raise the delivery portion of hydro bills in Ontario by 9.5% in 2010 and 13.3% in 2011, in an attempt to raise over 250 million dollars to cover increased distribution costs. Much of that cost is tied to its Green Energy Plan for 2010-2014.

This is in stark contrast to Minister Smitherman’s statement on February 23rd 2009, “We anticipate that associated with the investments that I’m speaking about today, [the increase will be] approximately one per cent per year.” – George Smitherman, Minister of Energy and Infrastructure discussing the financial impacts of the GREEN ENERGY ACT.

“This massive increase just deals with the increased cost of delivering wind factory produced energy.  We aren’t even dealing with the increased cost of promising wind developers’ a price for their power which is three to five times higher than the current retail cost.” commented John Laforet, President of Wind Concerns Ontario, a coalition of thirty- four grassroots citizen groups spread out over twenty-one counties and the Cities of Toronto and Ottawa.

“Especially during the tough times Ontario industry and citizens are facing through this painful recession, it is the wrong time for these kind of increases, brought on by an irresponsible and ill-advised plan of our energy future by this government” said John Laforet in response to the impacts this will have on Ontario’s people and economy.

“The government needs to realize that this plan is unsustainable and unaffordable for Ontarians. Steep increases like these to our hydro bills, which will be subject to an additional 8% tax when the PST is harmonized are really going to hurt a lot of folks who are just barely hanging on.”

Wind Concerns Ontario is calling on Minister Smitherman and the Ontario Energy Board to keep his promise to Ontarians that electricity bills would not see increases of more than 1 percent per year and develop an energy plan that reflects that reality.

For More Information Contact:
Beth Harrington, Media Relations, Wind Concerns Ontario
John Laforet, President Wind Concerns Ontario
windconcerns@gmail.com

Liberals Misleading on Energy Prices 

To voice your opinion email boardsec@oeb.gov.on.ca 
Reference:EB-2009-0096 
Deadline: September 16th 2009 

(Ottawa, ON) – Energy Critic John Yakabuski (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke MPP) said today that Dalton McGuinty and George Smitherman have clearly pulled a fast one on Ontario electricity customers. Yakabuski pointed out that the recent request by Hydro One for shocking rate increases is proof that Energy Minister Smitherman was not being honest when he repeatedly claimed that the “Green Energy Act” would only add 1% per year to your electricity bill. 

“This is simply unacceptable. How can Dalton McGuinty and George Smitherman allow this to happen?” said Yakabuski. “Have they no regard for what people are going through these days? And worse yet, the McGuinty Liberals will rub salt into the wound when they add a further 8% to your bill with the implementation of the Harmonized Sales Tax on July 1, 2010.” 

Hydro One’s request would see the delivery charge on the average residential customer’s bill rise by 9.5% in 2010 and 13.3% in 2011. Some customers could see their charges go up by as much as 24.6% next year. Electricity is an essential commodity. While everyone is encouraged to conserve, this rate increase will do the opposite. As these charges are for delivery, bills will rise even when consumers use less. Yakabuski assures that Tim Hudak and the Progressive Conservative Caucus will not allow this to go unchallenged. 

“The Liberal government was warned that their policies would lead to this, but they denied it or just didn’t seem to care,” said Yakabuski. “This could be devastating to so many Ontarians already struggling to pay their bills. We will fight tooth and nail to protect families, seniors and all electricity ratepayers from these harmful increases. We will hold the Liberals accountable.” 

For More Information: 
Mr. John Yakabuski (613) 639-3005

“The Devil’s in the Details”

 Heard that one before?  You’ll hear it over and over again every time this Act and the other two are brought up in discussion.  Basically this Tax sounds rather sublime as McGuinty explained it, as a blending of the Provincial and Federal Taxes into one simple and easily calculated tax on purchases of goods and services.  With very few actual details available as yet we do know that we will be paying for many goods and services that were exempt from the previous divided taxes but the real horror story here is what is going to happen to the Real Estate Market when this Bill comes in effect in July of 2010.

Any house selling for under $400,000 will not be subject to any changes in the First Time Buyer’s Tax on the home which is good news, at least it sounds like good news but go to Toronto for instance and try and find a house under $400,000.  The average home price even in the middle of a recession which could be called a Depression by anyone out of work even though that isn’t “politically correct”, is now $525,000.  In fact almost 90% of all home sales are well over the 400,000 dollar cutoff price.

 Now take a first home buyer and crunch these numbers………they first have to put a down payment of 20,000 dollars (5%) on a $400,000 home and after July 2010 they will also have to come up with an additional $32,000 for McGuinty’s HST dream.  That additional $32,000+ is not “Mortgageable”.  Banks will not mortgage a tax.  That $32,000+ has to come out of the First Time Home Buyers personal account in cash!

That’s 52,000 dollars on a 400,000 dollar home before the “key turning ceremony”.

 Nova Scotia adopted a Harmonized Sales Tax a couple of years ago and it has been a Disaster! 

Now McGuinty and his “Financial Wizards” are going down the same slippery slope.  The first sign things are going wrong when this hits Toronto is the fact that over 30,000 new home starts will not take place! (average new home starts are 100,000 per year). That will be the most direct visible and immediate hit on the Real Estate Market.  Sales of new homes will be “off” by at least 30 to 40 %.  When growth over the last 10 years in Toronto on homes sales has shown one of the healthiest markets in the world with a fairly controlled and affordable increase in prices and sales make this destructive Tax all the more “Mind Boggling”!

 WHY would a Government body try and ruin a successful and stable market in one piece of Legislature and basically take away the “dream” of every Canadian of owning their own home after working in an honest and successful economy such as once existed in Ontario?  Could it be that the Government needs a huge influx of cash to finance The Green Energy Act that will demand at least 5 thousand millions of dollars (5 Billion) PLUS to prop up and industrialize Rural Ontario with a Wind “Scam” that basically does nothing positive for anything other than create a huge Energy Supply for a U.S.A. power hungry nation?  We will look into this in more detail as the picture unfolds in additional posts.……….

Suffice to say that for the Government to answer these questions we will have to demand a Public Inquiry!

“The Devil is in the Details”.

One more quote that defines this Act except there are no details………as yet.

Here is the third part of the “Triple Crown of the Destruction of Ontario”!

The announcement last week by McGuinty that Ontario………”can’t wait for Canada or the U.S. to implement this program, so Ontario has to lead the way”….. makes it fairly clear, or unclear, that Ontario is setting the agenda for the next few years for North America’s “new” industrial economy.

Did You Know?………..that McGuinty announced this Act AFTER the consultation period for input from concerned “stakeholders”  was completed on March 3/08?  Read the original site where the requests for input was posted at: http://www.ebr.gov.on.ca/ERS-WEB-External/displaynoticecontent.do?noticeId=MTA1Mzkx&statusId=MTU3OTI4&language=en

Conclusion: Don’t allow any constructive debate of a highly “contraversial” Bill to take place.  Only in Ontario …eh?

Each announcement from The Green Energy Act to the Harmonized Tax Act to the Cap and Trade Act has had statements made during their introduction such as ….”we are planting our flag”……and…….”we want to be Number One in the World as an Environmental Leader”………..and terms such as this making one wonder if we Ontarians have declared WAR on someone and are leading our Flag into battle?….

The “War” seems to be declared on the citizens of Ontario to either go along with these legislative acts or suffer the consequences.  We have been told as much in newspaper releases by McGuinty and Smitherman.

The Cap and Trade Act simply put is about as destructive and counter productive as any Act could be.

It is the “capping” of an industry’s expulsion of C02 into the atmosphere and then receiving a “credit” for every ounce of C02 under that cap that then can be traded to any other industry for money, goods or other consideration that pollutes.  In the end the cost of goods rise and are passed onto who?…...US, the consumer!………

Here are just a few quotes within the last two weeks about Cap and Trade:

“Cap-and-trade is an economic program run by governments to charge Canadians — not “polluters” who in fact get to pass along their costs, and more, to us — for something we’ve never been charged for before. “

“Introducing it during the worst global recession since the Great Depression is stark, raving, mad. “

“And it’s not just electricity that’s going to go up. So is the cost of food and virtually everything we buy, because it takes energy to grow it, manufacture it and transport it to market.  So is the cost of heating and cooling our homes, for the vast majority.  So is our water bill, because it takes electricity to pump it to our homes. “

Of course this Act is promised to be in effect by 2012 and that should be in time for a full recovery of our industrial base in Ontario and just in time to drive any investment in new industry out of Ontario ensuring us of sustaining the “Have Not” status we now enjoy under the present Government.

Ontario has always been the engine that runs the Country but now has been reduced to being the fuel.

The Fuel Tank is emptying fast folks and we must ask the Politicians WHY is this happening?

To get those answers we need a Public Inquiry!

NEXT: Specific background references to the generalized statements above…………

CAP and TRADE: ORGANIZED CRIME’S BEST FRIEND

Reuters reports:

The British tax office arrested seven people in London on Wednesday in a suspected 38 million pounds ($62.6 million) value-added tax fraud in the European market in carbon allowances, it said. … “Those arrested are believed to be part of an organized crime group operating a network of companies trading large volumes of high-value carbon credits,” it said.

The Financial Times adds:

Anand Doobay, a partner at Peters & Peters, a City-based law firm specialising in financial crime, said the ethereal nature of the fast-expanding multi-billion dollar international market in carbon credits had made them an attractive target for graft: “There is an increasing amount of fraud connected with them as a commodity. It’s trading with something that’s intangible, and that isn’t regulated in the way some other commodities are.”

Since carbon credits are a completely intangible unlike every other real commodity on the planet, cap and trade has afforded organized crime a new avenue to defraud taxpayers and other unsuspecting victims. Now where have we heard people predict exactly that would happen?

Carbon Trading Is an Invitation to Fraud

Why Should the U.S. Embrace Failure?

Lies Environmentalists Tell

The Fraud at the Core of Cap and Trade

Cap and Trade’s Inevitable Central Planning Conclusion

The Fraud behind Carbon Reduction Targets

Lawrence Solomon: Coal is still king

Posted: August 29, 2009, 3:15 AM by NP Editor

Carbon capture and storage technologies pushed by Western governments may or may not work, but …

W

e can’t continue to use the atmosphere as a dump for carbon dioxide emissions, say governments concerned about global warming. Rather than storing this colourless, odourless, tasteless gas way up there, they reason, let’s store the carbon dioxide way down here, buried under ground or in the oceans.

And since burial solves the carbon dioxide problem, they then conclude, we can with a clear conscience crank up our use of coal.

This is the case in Canada, where the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy proposes a continuation of the boom that we’ve seen in coal mining this decade. This is the case in the U.S., where coal production has been steadily growing and where President Barack Obama touts coal above other energy options. And this is especially the case in the United Kingdom, perhaps the world’s most earnest warner of global warming catastrophe. The U.K. is today so bullish on burial that it has resuscitated the coal mining industry that Maggie Thatcher tried to kill off in the 1980s.

In the last four years, the U.K. has approved 54 coal mines, most of them open-pit, while simultaneously pointing to the aggressive reductions in CO2 emissions to which it’s committed — 34% by 2020. Scotland, which boasts the world’s very toughest CO2 reduction targets (42% by 2020), has approved 25 new open-pit mines, helping them along by relaxing planning regulations that apply to open-pit mines. Because all this isn’t enough, the U.K. is considering the approval of another 19 open-pit mines as well as upping its coal imports too.

“We don’t see this as counter to our climate change message,” cheerily states the government’s Department for Energy and Climate Change. “The U.K. is at the forefront of global efforts to decarbonise fossil fuels.”

The decarbonisation that the U.K. government refers to involves burial on land and — especially attractive for an island nation — at sea. A recently released Scottish government report determined that the Scottish area of the North Sea alone could store all the carbon dioxide that all the coal-fired plants in the U.K. would produce over the next two centuries, leading the Scottish First Minister to speculate that a high-tech carbon capture and storage industry could create 10,000 Scottish jobs.

But ocean storage raises a tide of objections from environmentalists, Greenpeace among them. Carbon dioxide in water could seriously acidify the oceans — already a concern — removing nutrients for plankton in areas like the U.K.’s North Sea as well as in shallow ocean waters, and affecting the food source for marine life. Some ocean storage technologies kill marine life directly. Plus, many scientists believe the oceans will fail to effectively contain carbon dioxide, which will be pumped into waters in either liquid or gaseous form. No one, not even the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, considers ocean storage to be much more than a concept, let alone a proven technology.

The potential for havoc to humans is much greater with carbon storage facilities under land. Carbon dioxide could adversely acidify groundwater, leading to leaching of contaminants into the water supply and rendering aquifers unusable.  For this reason and others — an unplanned release of the gas could suffocate humans or animals, and carbon storage can induce earthquakes — governments on both sides of the Atlantic have proposed carbon storage facilities and communities have opposed them.

How will this all end? We can be confident that coal use will keep on growing for decades to come, in line with official projections that show worldwide demand soon doubling —without coal for electricity production, most jurisdictions will be unable to keep the lights on. We can also be confident that communities will successfully fend off many if not most of the carbon storage schemes that threaten them and their environments. Finally, we can be confident that governments, after spending tens of billions on carbon storage schemes of dubious benefit, will conclude that the safest place to store today’s relatively high levels of carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere, where it now resides.

Financial Post
lawrencesolomon@nextcity.com
Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and Urban Renaissance Institute and author of The Deniers: The world-renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria, political persecution, and fraud.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/08/29/lawrence-solomon-coal-is-still-king.aspx

The REAL reasoning behind the Cap and Trade Act (not to save the planet but make huge amounts of $$$$$$$$$$)

The story below is a real indication of the importance of wind farms to
the Provincial govt. They need the carbon credits so they can cover the
emissions they create. You on the other hand are going to subsidize the
turbines, pay much higher electric bills, and live within a
predetermined carbon allotment. Wind farms and global warming are
intrinsically tied.

> The top climate science advisor to the German government has proposed
> that everyone on the planet should have a personal CO2 budget and be
> forced to pay a tax if they exceed it, adding that westerners have
> already exceeded their allocations and should pay climate reparations
> to poorer countries.
>
> This is not just another tax being rammed through using the phony
> pretext of global warming, it’s the entrée for complete government
> tracking and control over your personal life. This is the “inventory”
> that Nancy Pelosi called for during her visit to China in May.
>
> On May 28, the Associated Press reported
> <http://climatedepot.com/a/956/EcoNanny-Pelosi-Every-aspect-of-our-lives-must-be-subjected-to-an-inventory>
> that Pelosi told a Chinese student that in order to cut back on CO2
> emissions, “Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory.”
>
> German climate scientist Joachim Schellnhuber is pushing for the same
> thing – the nanny state on steroids.
>
> How will a personal CO2 budget be enforced? Every plane ticket you
> buy, every time you fill up at the station, every mile of every
> journey you make will be fed into a centralized government database,
> creating a leviathan matrix system to catalogue every aspect of your
> personal behavior. Exceed your personal carbon budget and you’ll be
> hit with a hefty fine, with the majority of the proceeds no doubt
> going straight to the huge international banking interests that own
> the carbon trading market
> <http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=90090>, mainly N M
> Rothschild & Sons, as well as
> <http://www.prisonplanet.com/research-reports-obama-intimately-tied-to-phony-environmental-movement.html>
> people like Maurice Strong and Al Gore.
>
> This CO2 tax will bankroll the very same globalist interests,
> specifically groups like the Club of Rome, that resolved decades ago
> to invent hysteria surrounding climate change in order to advance
> their agenda for global government.
> <http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/march2007/140307hysteria.htm>
>
> “Schellnhuber is proposing the creation of a CO2 budget for every
> person on the planet, regardless whether they live in Berlin or
> Beijing,” reports Der Spiegel
> <http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,646506,00.html>, a
> “breathtaking” idea according to Czech physicist Dr. Lubos Motl
> <http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/06/german-climate-adviser-your-carbon-quota-is-up-pay-up/>,
> who said Schellnhuber’s proposal helped him “to understand how crazy
> political movements such as the Nazis or communists could have so
> easily taken over a nation that is as sensible as Germany.”
>
> Schellnhuber goes further, claiming that westerners have already
> exceeded their CO2 allocations and will need to pay climate
> reparations to poorer countries amounting to no less than $142 billion
> dollars a year, every year.
>
> “Humankind has to limit itself to emit only fixed amount of carbon
> into the atmosphere until 2050. [...] Because the industrialized
> nations have already exceeded their quotas if you take into account
> past emissions. [...] With the current output you see that Germany,
> the US and other industrialized nations have either already used up
> their permissible quota, or will do so within the next few years.
> [...] The industrialized nations are facing CO2 insolvency. This means
> that they have to notch up their efforts to reduce climate change,
> otherwise they will use up the CO2 budget actually designated to
> poorer countries and future generations,” he told Der Spiegel.
>
> The proposal mirrors similar measures called for by MP’s in Britain
> <http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1021983/Every-adult-Britain-forced-carry-carbon-ration-cards-say-MPs.html>,
> which would force every adult to use a “carbon ration card’ when they
> pay for petrol, airline tickets or household energy.”
>
> The next step has also already been floated. Should you become a
> serial carbon offender, no doubt your thermostat will be forcibly
> turned down by the government via remote control. Sound too far
> fetched? According to a January 2008 New York Times report
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/us/11control.html?_r=1>, “State
> regulators are likely to have the emergency power to control
> individual thermostats, sending temperatures up or down through a
> radio-controlled device that will be required in new or substantially
> modified houses and buildings to manage electricity shortages.”

What Western Business Leaders have to say about Cap and Trade

For Immediate Release:  Sept. 17, 2009
Contact:  Michelle Hindmarch, Western Business Roundtable, 303.577.4615

Western Business Leaders Say “Cap-and-Trade” Proposals Are Failing The Public’s “Test of Common Sense”

Broad-based coalition says that Congress should ‘go back to the drawing board’ and develop climate legislation that follows 10 ‘common sense’ principles

DENVER, CO (Sept. 17, 2009) — A coalition of Western business leaders working on greenhouse gas control technologies says that the leading cap-and-trade proposal in Congress is no longer politically viable because it “fails the public’s test of common sense,” while levying crushing new costs on citizens in the middle of a recession.

Instead, the Western Business Roundtable says that if Congress develops climate change legislation that follows “10 Common Sense Principles,” released by the Roundtable this week, it would gain the acceptance of a public increasingly skittish about sweeping proposals from the federal government.

“If Congress goes back to the drawing board and develops climate legislation that follows these 10 common sense principles, it would undoubtedly be embraced by the American people, and it would lead to an explosion of technology innovation that would help us address climate concerns,” said Roundtable President and CEO Jim Sims.

“The Waxman-Markey bill in Congress, as well as other highly-complicated regional efforts to impose cap-and-trade schemes on the economy, are on political life support now primarily because citizens have awakened to the crushing costs, job losses and market uncertainty these bills would inevitably cause,” Sims said. “Voters demand that large government initiatives like this pass the ‘test of common sense.’ They want clear evidence that they can count on these programs to deliver more benefits than they cost. The plans being pushed now fail on all these counts, and that’s why Congress and other climate policy initiatives need to go back to the drawing board.”

Sims said that Roundtable companies “are on the forefront of developing the breakthrough technologies needed to reduce air emissions of all types. Reasonable rules of the road by the government are needed to guide future investments. But those rules would be much more effective if they focused on incentives to accelerate technology development by the private sector, rather than on government micro-management of technology development.”

The Roundtable’s 10 Common Sense Principles for federal climate legislation follow:

1. Congress is best suited to determine how a national greenhouse gas emissions reduction program should work. Therefore, any bill should explicitly preempt the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
   
2. Federal action should aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while also allowing for robust economic growth and job creation across all sectors. Legislation that aims to reduce emissions by forcing a further contraction of our economy — by artificially constricting energy supply and encouraging higher prices — will choke any economic recovery and will be soundly rejected by the American people. Therefore, cap-and-trade legislation should include some form of “safety valve” to ensure that the American people are not subjected to wild swings in energy prices or runaway cost increases.
   
3. Federal action should incorporate, as part of any greenhouse gas emissions reduction program, a fully transparent cost-benefit assessment that yields a net positive outcome and achieves wide consensus. Consumers must be made fully aware of the potential economic impacts of proposed policies prior to any vote in the Congress.
   
4. Federal action should encourage the rapid research, development, demonstration and deployment, through public-private partnerships, of a broad spectrum of supply-side and demand-side technologies and practices aimed at managing greenhouse gas emissions.
   
5. Federal action should allow the electric utility sector to continue to supply consumers with adequate supplies of clean, affordable and reliable energy, and to recover all costs necessary to achieve any greenhouse gas emission reduction levels sought by public policies.
   
6. Federal action should involve all sectors of the economy, all sources and sinks and all types of greenhouse gases.
   
7. Federal action should recognize that climate change is a global phenomenon that requires comprehensive, long-term and coordinated worldwide responses. Unilateral action by the U.S. — without comparable commitments to reductions by emitting nations like China and India — will harm our ability to compete in world markets, export U.S. jobs overseas and will result in no measurable change in future climates.
   
8. Federal action should recognize that the time frame for implementation of any greenhouse gas emission reduction requirements must be tied to technology availability, reliability and economic feasibility in order to avoid unacceptable impacts on consumers and the electricity grids.
   
9. Federal action should target revenues generated by a climate change program to the rapid development and deployment of technologies to capture and store greenhouse gases, to appropriate assistance programs that help end-use consumers deal with higher energy costs, and to reasonable climate mitigation initiatives.
   
10. Federal action should allow greater access to public lands (both onshore and offshore) for the development of domestic energy resources — such as renewables, oil and gas, oil shale, coal and nuclear power — so that America can continue to seek greater energy independence.

#   #   #

Contact: Michelle Hindmarch, Western Business Roundtable, 303.577.4615

The following news story on June 10/09 from the ChronicleHerald.ca is fairly self explanatory:  Excerpts are higlighted which show a confidential connection to Ministries at the highest levels of our Federal Government.  The Wind Industry also enjoys the same “cozy” relationship with our Provincial Government.

 
OTTAWA – Money earmarked to support wind energy producers was diverted to research and development in the oil patch in backroom budget wrangling, the minister of natural resources said in a conversation with an aide in January.

Lisa Raitt told aide Jasmine MacDonnell that she suspects Environment Minister Jim Prentice took the money for wind power and redirected it to his Clean Energy Plan – a $1-billion fund for research and development in the oil sands.

The revelation is likely to intensify criticism of the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper as unfriendly to the environment.

Mr. Prentice is the MP for Calgary-Centre North, home to much of Canada’s oil industry. Mr. Harper also represents a Calgary riding.

Ms. Raitt made the comment as she and Ms. MacDonnell were being driven around British Columbia on Jan. 30, a few days after the budget.

The conversation was inadvertently recorded on Ms. MacDonnell’s digital recorder and eventually came into the possession of The Chronicle Herald.

Ms. MacDonnell tells Ms. Raitt that CanWEA, the Canadian Wind Energy Association, had sent a letter to its supporters complaining about the lack of funding for wind energy in the budget.

“I’m not going to put up with the whining of CanWEA, and the reason being is that they’re not utilizing the money that is there now,” says Ms. Raitt. “And until these things don’t start getting built.”

Ms. MacDonnell appears to read from the letter from CanWEA: “We know that the proposal was actively promoted and pushed by Minister Raitt. In fact, it is our understanding that it was actually part of the budget until it was taken out very late in the process.”

Ms. Raitt responds: “No. No. I would never have told that.”

“You wouldn’t have told her,” says Ms. MacDonnell. “Is that true?”

“Yes,” says Ms. Raitt. “It is true.”

Speculation about the recording has been rife since the Canadian Press reported Tuesday that Ms. Raitt mentioned Mr. Prentice on the recording, apparently because Conservative officials knew about the comments and were bracing themselves.

Ms. Raitt’s comments about the budget wrangling were made on the same five-hour recording ………………………………………………………

• Takes away your civil right to object to any infrastructure project proposed for your neighbourhood regardless of impact on you and your family.
• Strips municipalities of their planning protection rights, effectively re-zones all of Ontario into an Industrial zone.
• Severely curtails environmental rights.
• Eliminates the need for proper Environmental Assessment thus putting Threatened and Endangered Species at risk.
• Eliminates previously protected designated Green Spaces and gives them to Industrial Wind Turbine developers.
• Excludes Ontarians from any say or objection in the establishment or location of industrial wind turbine plants.
• Systematically Silences Ontario citizens .
• Fails to address health issues or any impacts on residents whatsoever
• Bestows the Energy “Czar” power over pricing and procurement.
• Awards aid to commercial wind-turbine developers, whose profits will come exclusively from public funds (guaranteed 20 years).
• Enacts a ”reverse onus” clause whereby developers will no longer be accountable, but rather it is the “victim” who must prove harm by doing their own costly environmental assessment. The victim is allowed only 15 days to complete.
• Infringes on our right to fair government, health and safety, and erodes trust and checks and balances in the system.
• Raises your electricity bill by an estimated 30%
• Search and Seizure – Grants the government the right to enter a place of business without a warrant to ensure conformance to energy audit standards with fines of up to $25,000.

The Title of the Revisons to the Green Energy Act is as follows:

On page 13 the following “Setback” revision is noted:

“Setback” refers to the distance in metres separating the centre of a structure, referred to as a Point of Reception in the Ministry of the Environment’s Noise Guidelines for Wind Farms (October 2008), and the base of the closest wind turbine. The noise emission level of a wind turbine must be the guaranteed values of the Sound Power Level corresponding to 95% rated power output. Should a Sound Power Level rating for a turbine fall between categories, it should be rounded up to the nearest whole number.

It is proposed that if a proposed wind energy generation facility has 26 or more turbines or has turbines with sound power level rating of more than 107 dBA, the proponent shall submit a noise study to the Ministry of the Environment consistent with Ministry of the Environment’s Noise Guidelines for Wind Farms (October 2008).

It is proposed that if the wind turbine project proponent should be interested in obtaining a lower setback than indicated for turbines it would have the option to complete a site-specific noise study consistent with the Ministry of the Environment’s Noise Guidelines for Wind Farms (October 2008) and the noise level limit of 40 dBA at the nearest Point of Reception. Under no circumstances can a site-specific study result in a setback lower than the minimum 550 metres.

It is proposed that the proponent will provide a frequency chart from the turbine manufacturer showing all tones generated by the turbine.”

WHY???????????

That is the question that hundreds of Ontario Citizens are asking themselves and their provincial reps since this announcement.  These poor souls are living amongst the hundreds of 400 foot tall Wind Turbines already installed and operating much closer than 550 metres away from their homes.

Has the Provincial Government now just “discovered” that any turbines closer than 550 metres to a living human being is dangerous?

We all know there are Health problems associated with Low Frequency Noise from existing Wind facilities and we have all heard the sad and tragic stories of many of our neighbours who have endured pain and suffering with no empathy whatsoever from the Wind Industry or Polticians who “rubber stamp” these projects and then go on to count the cash crop they have just planted.

WHY????

Until that question is answered we DEMAND that FULL  HALT  NOW is placed on any further development of Wind Facilities in our Province until that one question is satisfactorily answered!