Who is served?

The attorney for the director of the Ministry of Environment was displeased. Sylvia Davis had come to Prince Edward County to ensure her boss’s decision remained untouched. Unfettered. Undiminished by the bleatings of locals concerned not about the noble green energy goals of her director and political masters, but rather the more pedestrian risks to the health and wellbeing of humans, plants and animals that her boss’s decision was threatening. It’s her job.

Just four days before Christmas Davis’s boss, the director of the Ministry of Environment, had given approval to Gilead Power Corporation to proceed with their development of nine industrial wind turbines on wild and rugged Crown land in South Marysburgh on Prince Edward County’s south shore. The General Electric 2.5 XL wind turbines soar to a height of 328 feet to the top of the hub—the blade diameter spans another 328 feet—a football field spinning well above the treetops. From ground to blade tip each tower will reach almost 500 feet, or 50 storeys, into the sky. With a commanding presence over South Marysburgh these industrial mammoths will force every manner of beast or winged creature to give it a wide berth—or risk being mangled in its sweep.

Davis knew early on she was in hostile territory. It was mostly worried and anxious faces that met her gaze as she scanned the room. Gamely she attempted to lay out her arguments to the gathering as much as to the tribunal member. But Davis was there to win. So when she casually cast aside consistency and logic in her arguments in order to win a small tactical advantage— a loud groan erupted from the gathering.

Davis was unhappy.

“I understand this is an emotional issue,” said Davis, pandering I suspect to the folks in the room worried about the damage these machines will wreak— rather than their disapproval of her manipulation of logic. “It is important that this matter is considered in a polite and judicious way.”

So there it is. The Ministry of Environment insists that you, citizens of Prince Edward County, sit completely still and listen politely as they who know better take the final steps in this false consultation and review masquerade.

“We are all adults here,” Davis scolded the crowd.

So keen is the Ministry of Environment to do the bidding of its now-departed Premier that the agency’s mandate has become a twisted and hollowed-out shell. The agency has lost any meaning as a guardian of the environment. The average person might understand this plot better if these goals were articulated by the Ministry of Energy or Trade or some such. But when the Ministry of Environment uses its resources, talent and money to clear the path for an energy developer intent on spoiling pristine wilderness, the average person may be forgiven for being confused. Disappointed. Disillusioned.

Most folks might once have believed the Ministry of Environment would focus its energies on protecting, rather than facilitating the destruction of, species at risk. They might think the MOE shares its worries about the hundreds of thousands of migratory birds that pass through South Marsyburgh each year. Or that the Ministry of Environment would lead the call for a study of the impact on human health of those living amid industrial wind turbines before this technology was erected across the province. They might believe the Ministry of Environment was concerned about the environment.

Instead, the Ministry of Environment has become an instrument of Dalton McGuinty’s green energy ambitions. The former Premier realized early on that the MOE and other regulatory safeguards were slowing his plans for wind turbines on every rural horizon. So, through the Green Energy Act, he radically diminished the powers of the Ministries of Natural Resources and Energy. Meanwhile he elevated this perverted role for the Ministry of Environment.

So the MOE’s primary role now is to rig the public consultation and review charade so that there is only one possible outcome. And that outcome must be delivered within six months.

Like cattle at the slaughterhouse—once we’ve been ushered onto the processing floor our fate is sealed. All paths lead to the same place. It’s already over.

It might be asking too much, that we accept this fate politely.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca