The Creemore
Echo
Friday, July 15, 2011 Vol. 11 No. 28
Inside the ECHO
See page 12 for a schedule of events
News and views in and around Creemore
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PROTESTERS STEAL WIND DEVELOPER’S SHOW
It Takes a Village...
THE RUMINATING RUSTICATOR
This is just the beginning of the extremely long line of vehicles that travelled together to protest at the wpd Canada public open house Wednesday.
Let’s try this Aiken SCHERBERGER as a mild brainteaser: What does an artist, a cabinetmaker, a handyman and sidekick, a graphic artist, an excavator, a painter, and a carver have in common? Another clue: some of these men come from families who have lived in Creemore and the surrounding area for generations counting back over 100 years, while others have been here less than two years. (See “It takes” on page 10)
by Brad Holden Wpd Canada held a mandated “public open house” regarding its Fairview Wind Farm proposal Wednesday night, but the real action was in the parking lot outside the Stayner Community Centre, where several hundred protestors held their own rally after arriving together in a fourkilometre long parade of tractors, cars and walkers. “Wind energy companies don’t believe in democracy, because they know they can’t fill a parking lot with this many people who believe in what they do,” said Wind Concerns Ontario president John LaForet, who has become the defacto “leader of the opposition” on the wind issue in Ontario. LaForet, along with local rally organizers Kevin Elwood and Chuck Magwood, spoke to the crowd from a hay-wagon stage, railing mainly against the province’s Green Energy Act, which allows wind developers to deal directly with the province for approvals, erasing all opportunity for public comment and giving local municipalities no role in the process. “If this were put to a local vote, there’s not a chance it would pass,” said Laforet. “It has not satisfied any tests that it’s in this community’s best interest.” He then went on to list the provincial oppositions parties’ promises on the subject – the Progressive Conservatives, he said, have promised a full moratorium on wind development until a full health study has been done, and both the PCs and the Greens have said they would return full decision-making power to local governments. Meanwhile, inside the Stayner Community Centre, wpd Canada hosted its open house. Like other wind open houses that have occured in the area, in Honeywood and (See “Opposition” on page 6)
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