Women, among others, vent anti–wind fury Monday

February 19, 2014 · 0 Comments

If the adage, “hell hath no fury like the wrath of a woman scorned” is true, wind turbine proponents would be wise to keep a sharp eye on their backs. At least some women of Ontario have indicated their feeling of scorn by the provincial government, the Green Energy Act, and the wind turbine industry.

Everyone is familiar with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and its overwhelming influence in reshaping Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act to the point at which even a single glass of wine could place many people at risk of a temporary licence suspension without recourse to anything.

Now there’s an offshoot of Wind Concerns Ontario (WCO) calling itself Mothers Against Wind Turbines, or Mothers Against Turbines (MAT), depending on where one looks.

MAT will be with Wind Concerns on Monday, Feb. 24, in a march from Queen’s Park to the Royal York Hotel, where municipal politicians from across the province will be assembled for the annual Good Roads convention along with at least some MPPs.

This appears to be a “get serious” kind of march. Lorrie Gillis of Grey Highlands, the local representative of WCO, has once again organized buses to collect participants from Chatsworth south through Shelburne and Orangeville and home again. She said recently there would be enough people to fill two coaches.

They’ll be joined by as many as three busloads from Kawartha Lakes, where residents are opposing the installation of five turbines in a provincially approved wind farm. There, the turbine towers would be 100 metres (about 328 feet) to the nacelle. This might equate to a nine or 10 storey office building, but there are variables.

According to promotional materials for the event, the dual purpose would be to support municipal politicians who are opposing turbines and also to let the Liberal government know the opposition is not “going away,” as the province appears to be heading to a possible early election.

The GEA, hence turbines, is touted as a serious election issue. Tim Hudak’s Tories are on the record as fighting the Act, and WCO is saying Tory MPP Lisa Thompson is something of a “best friend.”

Ms. Thompson (Huron-Bruce) has tabled four motions calling for a moratorium on further wind farm developments.

She has accumulated a number of documents obtained, she says, through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests by which she says Ontario was aware of human health effects from turbines as early as 2009, but she claims such reports have been submerged and ministry officials involved in identifying the problems ordered to “stand down.”

By Wes Keller