Ensuring Affordable Energy Act Voted Down by Liberal-NDP Alliance

QUEEN’S PARK, ON — On Thursday, a local contingent of municipal leaders and residents of Sarnia-Lambton watched as the Liberal and NDP members of the Ontario Legislative Assembly voted to continue the ominous march of industrial wind turbines across rural Ontario. The Ensuring Affordable Energy Act, a bill presented by Ontario PC MPP, Lisa Thompson, was vigorously debated in the legislature before the Liberal and NDP members teamed to kill the act and its central purpose of returning decision making authority for industrial wind turbine developments to local municipalities.

The Ensuring Affordable Energy Act was drafted in response to the groundswell of criticism that the Liberal and NDP parties have received since they rushed to pass and implement the Green Energy Act (GEA) in 2009. Several municipal leaders, including Enniskillen Township Mayor Kevin Marriott, joined in the full day efforts to persuade members of the Liberals and NDP to amend the controversial GEA by voting in support of the solutions presented in MPP Thompson’s bill. Ultimately, the Liberal and NDP parties chose to ignore the pleas of the municipal leaders and residents, choosing instead to support maintaining control of industrial wind turbine developments by Toronto bureaucrats.

“The [Liberal] Green Energy Act has been nothing short of a nightmare for our community,” said Mayor Marriott. “We feel like our democracy has been stripped away with this unfair piece of legislation. People in Enniskillen Township are concerned that the cost of these industrial wind turbines is killing our existing manufacturing sector and not generating any new business.”

“St. Clair Township, Enniskillen, Oil Springs, Petrolia, Point Edward, Sarnia and Plympton-Wyoming and the residents who live within those municipalities should have a say on the location of an industrial wind farm in their community,” said MPP Bailey after meeting with the members of the local delegation.

“I hear regularly from constituents across Sarnia-Lambton with real concerns regarding wind turbines being built near their homes,” said MPP Bailey. “One mother told me that she felt she had ‘no choice, no guarantee and no voice’ in regard to a wind turbine slated to be built to tower over her property. I think the Premier is completely out-of-touch on this issue. I believe that the people of Sarnia-Lambton know best when it comes to making decisions regarding our communities, not bureaucrats in downtown Toronto offices.”

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