Isn't it amazing how the St.Catharines Standard's Metcalfian wrong-righters have conveniently hahaha been 'unable to find' their local Liberal buddy, MPP Jim Bradley (McGuinty's newest Environment Minister) for an interview regarding the energy messes which the Liberals cocked up with those gas-fired energy generators in Oakville and Mississauga?
It's funny how the St. Catharines Standard just can't find the time to bother asking Good Ole Liberal Jimmy about it!!
At least the Nov.5, 2011 Waterloo Record had a good editorial on this issue; too bad the embarrassing Bradleyphiles at the St.Catharines Standard haven't... umm... bothered asking their hero Jimmy about any of this...
Whether the Ontario Liberals keep building a new power plant in Mississauga or honour their promise to kill it, they have exposed themselves as inept managers of a major public project.
Either way, they will have botched an important part of their energy policy — an area in which they are supposedly experts. And if the Greenfield South gas-fired power plant is axed, they will waste a shocking amount of money — how much they refuse to say — in a year Ontario faces a $16 billion deficit. The people of this province are owed better.
Ontarians deserve a reliable supply of electricity delivered at an economical price. What they are getting, instead, is a new power plant that continued to be built this week on the very day that Premier Dalton McGuinty recommitted himself to moving it.
What an infuriating contradiction between deeds and words. Is this yet another shattered Liberal promise — which would justifiably infuriate people in Mississauga? Or does it mean no new electricity for Ontarians with a bill of millions and millions of dollars — which would justifiably infuriate just about everyone? How crazy is this?
The alarm bells have been ringing on this one for the past six weeks ever since the government made the sudden, surprising and suspiciously quiet announcement that construction on the Greenfield South gas-fired power plant would stop, with another plant built somewhere else.
The time and place of this revelation were disturbing. It was just 12 days before the Oct. 6 provincial election and it came from four Liberal candidates in the Mississauga area, the community in which the Greenfield plant was being built and was opposed by many voters. The most prominent of these local Liberals was Mississauga South MPP Charles Sousa, a cabinet minister who was in a dead heat with Conservative challenger Geoff Janoscik.
It’s impossible to say whether the cancellation of the Greenfield plant was the reason Sousa and the three other local Liberals were re-elected. Even so, the optics are terrible and leave the Liberals open to understandable allegations that they indulged in the crudest kind of electioneering and cancelled an unpopular project to win seats. This was, after all, a decision made by the politicians, not energy ministry bureaucrats.
It’s not good enough for the premier to say construction will stop, another plant will be built and no more. If work is to end, when will it stop? And why did top Liberal politicians only conclude that the plant was a bad idea on the eve of an election? Why was this plant approved in the first place? And didn’t the Liberals commit an egregious error in giving it the go-ahead? Tell us, please.
There are other nagging questions the Liberals cannot dodge. If the Greenfield plant is axed, where will its replacement be located and when will it be ready? How will the province, in the short term at least, meet the energy needs that the Greenfield plant would have satisfied? And how would all this affect the schedule for closing Ontario’s coal-fired generating stations — noxious polluters the Liberals promised to shut down years ago?
Finally, what will this cost? Eastern Power began building the Greenfield plant in March. The walls are going up. A massive generator was delivered by truck last week. Every minute of every working day, the bill for this project is soaring, a bill taxpayers will have to cover. The opposition Conservatives claim this plant could be worth up to $400 million and a good part of it is completed. What will Eastern Power expect in compensation? And what will the public have to show for what seems an unavoidable squandering of public money — other than another Liberal government?"
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No one from the St.Catharines Standard's JimmyBoy Fanclub will ever dare to ask their Boy Jim any questions about that!!
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Either way, they will have botched an important part of their energy policy — an area in which they are supposedly experts. And if the Greenfield South gas-fired power plant is axed, they will waste a shocking amount of money — how much they refuse to say — in a year Ontario faces a $16 billion deficit. The people of this province are owed better.
Ontarians deserve a reliable supply of electricity delivered at an economical price. What they are getting, instead, is a new power plant that continued to be built this week on the very day that Premier Dalton McGuinty recommitted himself to moving it.
What an infuriating contradiction between deeds and words. Is this yet another shattered Liberal promise — which would justifiably infuriate people in Mississauga? Or does it mean no new electricity for Ontarians with a bill of millions and millions of dollars — which would justifiably infuriate just about everyone? How crazy is this?
The alarm bells have been ringing on this one for the past six weeks ever since the government made the sudden, surprising and suspiciously quiet announcement that construction on the Greenfield South gas-fired power plant would stop, with another plant built somewhere else.
The time and place of this revelation were disturbing. It was just 12 days before the Oct. 6 provincial election and it came from four Liberal candidates in the Mississauga area, the community in which the Greenfield plant was being built and was opposed by many voters. The most prominent of these local Liberals was Mississauga South MPP Charles Sousa, a cabinet minister who was in a dead heat with Conservative challenger Geoff Janoscik.
It’s impossible to say whether the cancellation of the Greenfield plant was the reason Sousa and the three other local Liberals were re-elected. Even so, the optics are terrible and leave the Liberals open to understandable allegations that they indulged in the crudest kind of electioneering and cancelled an unpopular project to win seats. This was, after all, a decision made by the politicians, not energy ministry bureaucrats.
It’s not good enough for the premier to say construction will stop, another plant will be built and no more. If work is to end, when will it stop? And why did top Liberal politicians only conclude that the plant was a bad idea on the eve of an election? Why was this plant approved in the first place? And didn’t the Liberals commit an egregious error in giving it the go-ahead? Tell us, please.
There are other nagging questions the Liberals cannot dodge. If the Greenfield plant is axed, where will its replacement be located and when will it be ready? How will the province, in the short term at least, meet the energy needs that the Greenfield plant would have satisfied? And how would all this affect the schedule for closing Ontario’s coal-fired generating stations — noxious polluters the Liberals promised to shut down years ago?
Finally, what will this cost? Eastern Power began building the Greenfield plant in March. The walls are going up. A massive generator was delivered by truck last week. Every minute of every working day, the bill for this project is soaring, a bill taxpayers will have to cover. The opposition Conservatives claim this plant could be worth up to $400 million and a good part of it is completed. What will Eastern Power expect in compensation? And what will the public have to show for what seems an unavoidable squandering of public money — other than another Liberal government?"
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No one from the St.Catharines Standard's JimmyBoy Fanclub will ever dare to ask their Boy Jim any questions about that!!
*
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