Rules

Kathleen Wynne and her Liberal government have left the voters of Prince Edward County with a terrible parting gift—and the rest of Ontarians with an ugly precedent. On May 11, the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) granted developer wpd Canada a Notice to Proceed, a document that clears the way for the developer to build its controversial industrial wind turbine project in the countryside around Milford. It did so two days after the writ was drawn up, signalling the official start of the election campaign.

Wynne’s decision effectively multiplies the cost of stopping this project. The incoming PC government had vowed to kill such projects that were still in development. Wynne’s decision may have snatched that option away from the incoming PC government. But not without a fight.

In any event, this decision will most certainly cost electricity customers and taxpayers many more millions of dollars than had the Liberal government simply wandered quietly into political oblivion.

For the folks who live under the threat of this project, it means the resistance gets much tougher—and their collective faith in fairminded provincial institutions serving the public good is further diminished.

This dreadful decision is also likely to result in legal challenges and political appeals. Last night, County council debated a motion brought by Sophiasburgh councillor Bill Roberts to find out how this happened. It is an important question.

His argument is based on 250 years of parliamentary custom, trodden upon by the outgoing Liberals.

In this country and many other commonwealth nations, we operate under guidelines that clearly spell out what a government may or may not do while in a caretaker mode— when parliament has been dissolved.

Under our Westminster form of government, convention requires that the Government command the confidence of the House at all times. Following dissolution of a Government, it can no longer presume to have the confidence of the House. Therefore, a caretaker government is expected to exercise restraint in its decision-making.

This does not mean it is barred from acting. Indeed, governments are required to continue to make decisions that are routine or necessary for the smooth operation of the government, the bureaucracy and the province.

But caretaker governments are explicitly guided to restrict their decisions using the following criteria. Is

a. routine, or
b. non-controversial, or
c. urgent and in the public interest, or
d. reversible by a new government without undue cost or disruption, or
e. agreed to by opposition parties (in those cases where consultation is appropriate)?

If the answer is no to any of these questions, the government is expected to refrain from acting, or risk being out of bounds in its caretaking role. That is our custom. It is bedrock stuff.

Wynne’s decision to approve wpd Canada fails each of these tests utterly and completely. Yet she chose to approve the developer’s controversial Notice to Proceed anyway. The question is why? Why overturn centuries of parliamentary convention? What did she have to gain?

Some will suggest Wynne was driven by spite. Toward a community that successfully stopped one industrial project and greatly diminished a second. One last stick in the eye of an MPP who fought tirelessly against the ill-conceived and destructive Green Energy Act. Other possible motivations sink to a level so grubby it becomes unseemly to speculate.

To those still grappling with the question about why Kathleen Wynne and her government were shown the door so decisively by Ontario voters, they are left to consider the pettiness and uselessness of this decision. A decision that ignores the fact that legal challenges to this project remain before the courts.

It certainly isn’t about the province needing another intermittent energy source. It doesn’t—a fact the IESO is uniquely equipped to assess. According to its own data, Ontario exports about 20 TWh of electricity each year, almost always at a heavy discount to the cost of producing it. That’s equal to about 14 per cent of our total demand— given away at a bargain prices each year. In terms of scale, White Pines’ potential output represents a contemptuous spit into Ontario’s vast lake of intermittent oversupply.

Nor is it green. White Pines is just a wasteful and destructive intrusion into another rural landscape, natural habitat and local economy that scratches a living from the pastoral beauty of the place. It serves no useful purpose other than to enrich shareholders in wpd Canada.

In any event, Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals chose to subvert the guidelines that underpin our parliamentary democracy. We need to know why they did it. We must hold them accountable. For this is how bedrock institutions are eroded. This is not politics as usual. Not here. Not yet. Unchecked, however, it soon will be.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca