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Prince Edward Hastings MPP Todd Smith

New MPP seeks to restore local decision-making over industrial wind turbines factories

Ontario’s Green Energy Act bulldozes through the rights of locally elected officials to determine if an energy plant is right for their community, says the new representative for Prince Edward-Hastings. MPP Todd Smith, in his first major initiative, has tabled a private member’s bill that seeks to restore local planning and decision-making powers to Ontario’s municipalities.

The provincial assembly, in just its second week of sitting since the election in October, will hear Smith’s bill this week.

“We heard the concern during the campaign over and over again,” said Smith in an interview with the Times. “Since we’ve opened the office here in Belleville it continues to be the big issue we hear the most. It was a key part of our Changebook platform and there is overwhelming support for this in the PC caucus.”

Smith points to the industrial wind turbine factory proposed on Crown land at Ostrander Point on the southern shore of the County.

“No other industrial project would even be considered on such environmentally sensitive area of the province as Ostrander Point,” said Smith. “But the Green Energy Act allows developers to trample over provincial environmental rules and safeguards.”

Smith says his bill will restore the power to people who know their community best.

“They are bulldozing over the views of democratically elected community officials. These rights need to be restored. Stripping powers away from municipalities is heavy handed and unnecessary.”

He says some communities embrace specific renewable projects planned for their communities. For Smith it is about giving local communities credit for considering both the big and small picture. He says the local municipality surrounding Marmora is in strong support of a planned pumped electricity storage plant under development in that community. Similarly the municipality of Bancroft is behind the biomass electricity generation plant being considered there.

But his bill would empower council of Prince Edward County to put the brakes on a project it believes is bad for the environment, bad for natural habitat and bad for the economy.

“It is not an anti-renewable energy issue,” stressed Smith. “It is about giving local communities control over what happens around them.”

It was a bit of the luck of the draw that has enabled Smith to put his bill on the floor of the legislature. Three private members bills are received each week with the order determined by a draw. Smith’s name was chosen sixth and his proposed legislation, the Local Municipality Democracy Bill, was heard earlier this week.

Smith insists this bill isn’t merely a symbolic protest. He says that along with strong support from his PC caucus, there are several members from both the Liberal and NDP ranks who believe planning and siting controls should be restored to municipalities over such large energy projects. His goal is to get sufficient support to have the bill heard for a second reading and sent to committee for further study and examination.

But Smith isn’t necessarily confident that the message is getting through to Dalton McGuinty.

“The premier doesn’t seem to care what is happening in rural Ontario,” said Smith.