fighting wind scam

Government has NO Business Funding Useless Wind Turbines!

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May 11. 2014 

George Fenwick: Taxpayers should

not be forced to subsidize bird-killing

wind turbines

BY GEORGE FENWICK

SINCE EARLY in our nation’s founding, we have placed a high value on conserving native wildlife so that future generations will be able to experience and benefit from wild species as we do today. Yet even as our federal government has ’sequestered’ federal funds and been forced to shutter national parks during contentious government shutdowns, we taxpayers have been regularly tapped, year after year, by large corporate wind companies to provide them with tax credits they demand in order to make a profit of their ventures.

Taxpayers may not be aware that they have funded for several years — through the federal government’s Production Tax Credit (PTC) — a public subsidy that can create a perverse incentive to put wind turbines in areas that produce little electricity but would have a devastating impact on migratory birds.

As presently configured, the PTC provides 2.3 cents per kilowatt generated, largely to wind energy companies. Poorly sited wind energy development kills significant numbers of birds and bats and alters sensitive wildlife habitat. At the current estimated mortality rate, the wind industry is killing hundreds of thousands of birds and bats per year and is expected to kill well over one million per year as projects are built to reach the federal goal of 20 percent renewable energy by 2030.

While these numbers represent a relatively small percentage of the total number of birds and bats estimated to reside in or breed in North America, many of the species being killed are already declining for other reasons, and this mortality can exacerbate these declines. In fact, the North American Breeding Bird Survey shows that between 1966 and 2010, 40 percent of neotropical migratory birds (55 of 137 species assessed) had significant negative population trends. The mortality due to wind turbines is just one more factor contributing to the cumulative impact of humans on wild bird and bat populations.

In addition, many species are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Endangered Species Act, and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. Killing them is a violation of federal law punishable by significant fines.

We all want clean, renewable energy, but wind power cannot be considered “green” if it is unnecessarily killing large numbers of birds and bats. However, we truly can have it both ways. Making wind power a win-win proposition for conservation-minded taxpayers is not overly complicated. Two key actions need to be taken.

The first is that “no-go” zones need to be established for the industry in the most sensitive locations where the toll on birds simply outweighs the benefits of wind development. American Bird Conservancy has already developed maps showing those areas.

The second is that the voluntary U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) permitting guidelines, by which the wind industry is currently guided, need to be made mandatory. Since the Energy Policy Act of 1992 established the PTC, the federal government has doled out billions of dollars and hoped that the for-profit wind industry would voluntarily do the right things to minimize impacts to birds and bats.

In addition to their inherent beauty and cultural and scientific importance, birds and bats also have an incalculable value by maintaining the ecosystems on which humans depend. For example, birds and bats eat billions of insects each year that left unchecked could decimate our crops, damage our forests, or lead to more use of troubling pesticides. Bats are equally valuable. In one eight-county region of Texas, Brazilian free-tailed bats saved local farmers an estimated $740,000 annually in crop damage and pesticide costs by feeding on corn earworm and cotton bollworm.

Unfortunately, in the case of wind energy, rapid development has gotten way out ahead of the science and regulatory framework. Setting reasonable regulatory sideboards for the industry and putting key, sensitive areas off limits are two principles that should be non-negotiable as renewal of the PTC is considered. It harkens back to an old standard in business dealings to which most of us have grown accustomed. It is called quid pro quo.

George Fenwick is president of the American Bird Conservancy in Washington, D.C.

 

Destroyed Roads…..one of many problems with Wind Turbines

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Where will wind companies get the money to pay for roads?

Sachem May 6,2014

I read the article in last week’s Sachem concerning the roadwork that will be required once the wind turbine companies are finished.

First of all, isn’t it nice that our county has waived the half load restrictions for these guys, once again displaying their eagerness to bend over backwards for anything related to the folly known as the Green Energy Act?

Secondly, it seems that the wind turbine companies themselves will be on the hook for the costs of the repairs.

Whew… that’s a relief. But where will they get the money? From the Ontario government, of course. And the Ontario government will get it from us. Samsung, in particular, loves to spend our tax dollars. I’m sure we paid the tab when Samsung took Mayor Hewitt on that little golf outing a couple of years back. We can only hope he golfs better than he governs.

Brad Smith,

Dunnville

Kathleen Wynne is destroying our Province. Time Hudak will turn things around!

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Kathleen Wynne says Tim Hudak will

plunge Ontario into recession as

PCs take aim at Liberals’ ‘bloated’ energy bureaucracy

Keith Leslie, Canadian Press | May 12, 2014 | Last Updated: May 12 2:11 PM ET
More from Canadian Press

Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak, left, walks in with employees before he makes an announcement at a packaging plant about creating 40,000 jobs in Ontario with affordable energy during a campaign stop in Smithville, Ont., on Monday, May 12, 2014.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan DenetteOntario PC Leader Tim Hudak, left, walks in with employees before he makes an announcement at a packaging plant about creating 40,000 jobs in Ontario with affordable energy during a campaign stop in Smithville, Ont., on Monday, May 12, 20

TORONTO — Ontario’s opposition parties started the second week of the campaign for the June 12 election Monday by focusing on soaring electricity bills, which they blamed on the Liberal government’s green energy policies.

Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak said he’d end generous subsidies for wind and solar power, cut the “bloated” bureaucracy at Hydro One and Ontario Power Generation to help get electricity rates low enough to generate 40,000 new jobs.

“We need to pare down that massive hydro bureaucracy,” Hudak said at a factory in Smithville, in the Niagara Peninsula.

“They have 11,000 people in the hydro bureaucracy making $100,000 a year, can you believe that?”

After announcing plans last Friday to trim 100,000 public sector jobs, Hudak also said he would reduce the number of provincial electricity agencies created after the breakup of the old Ontario Hydro.

Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne says Hudak’s plan for the province would plunge Ontario back into a recession.

Wynne says Hudak’s “reckless” election campaign pledge to shrink the public sector by 100,000 jobs would “sacrifice our fragile economic recovery.”

Speaking at the Carpenters’ Union local 27 training centre in Vaughan, Wynne said Hudak would fire many of the people who hire skilled tradespeople for home renovations.

“We believe this is exactly the wrong way to go,” she said.

“His approach would sacrifice our fragile economic recovery and would plunge us back toward recession. That may be his approach but it’s not mine and it is not ours.”

Wynne says when people can’t afford to build or renovate their homes, highly skilled apprentices would have trouble finding work.

She says a Liberal government would safeguard those jobs by investing $130 billion over a decade in infrastructure projects across the province.

Hudak has said that if his party wins the June 12 provincial election, he wants to shrink the public sector to increase efficiencies and spur job creation in the private sector.

“Unlike Tim Hudak, we believe that jobs are more important than cuts,” Wynne said. “Tim Hudak is proposing a reckless and really devastating cut that would take 100,000 jobs and would replace those with pink slips. He’s making a pink-slip pledge.”

Campaigning in Thunder Bay, Ont., New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath promised to scrap the provincial portion of HST on hydro bills if she becomes premier, which she said would save homeowners about $120 a year.

“Instead of making life affordable, the Liberals decided to add an unfair tax on top of the highest electricity rates in the country,” said Horwath. “We’re going to take it off and make life affordable for families.”

Premier Kathleen Wynne spent the first part of her day on the radio, defending the Liberals’ decisions to cancel two gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga, which could cost taxpayers up to $1.1 billion.

They have 11,000 people in the hydro bureaucracy making $100,000 a year, can you believe that?

Wynne said former premier Dalton McGuinty did “what he believed was right,” but added that she has tried to rectify mistakes that she believes were made.

Campaigning later in Vaughan, north of Toronto, Wynne said hydro rates went up in large part because the government had to make massive investments to repair and upgrade Ontario’s electricity system after years of neglect.

“There’s a cost associated with that, and so we are working to make sure that there are programs and supports in place for people who are struggling to pay for their electricity,” she said. “But are we going to back away from clean, renewable energy? No, we’re not going to do that.”

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren CalabreseOntario Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne speaks in front of carpenter apprentices and other Liberal candidates during a campaign stop at the Carpenters’ Union Local 27 Training Centre in Vaughan, Ont. on Monday, May 12, 2014.

Hudak lashed out at both the Liberals and the NDP for rising electricity bills.

“A billion dollars in the gas plants scandal to save a couple Liberal seats and you folks got stuck with the bill,” he said.

“And the NDP, they’re really just the great pretenders. They say they care about hydro rates but they voted with the Liberals each and every time.”

Wynne went on the attack against Hudak’s plan to wipe out tens of thousands of public sector jobs in an effort to eliminate the $12.5-billion deficit in just two years.

“We have a plan to cut ribbons at construction sites. Tim Hudak’s plan is to cut jobs at construction sites,” she said.

“Our steady balanced approach would invest in transit, invest in infrastructure, and it invests in skills training to help the people of Ontario get good jobs.”

Hudak said he’s giving people the “hard talk and the plain truth,” while the Liberals and NDP are making promises Ontario can’t afford.

“If this were a popularity contest, you’d promise everything under the sun to all people,” he said. “I’m actually proposing some pretty tough choices, but I think we owe it to Ontarians to be honest with them about the mess that we’re in.”

— With files from Maria Babbage, Diana Mehta and Colin Perkel

Conservatives are our only chance to save province! Lib/NDP promise more of same!

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MONTE SOLBERG - Ontario's future in hands of voters

QUEEN’S PARK

Credits: FILE PHOTO/Dave ThomasToronto Sun/QMI Agency

MONTE SOLBERG | QMI AGENCY

Ontario is great. Without Ontario we wouldn’t have the Great Lakes, Bobby Orr or that secret club in Toronto’s Rosedale where the chattering class gathers to decide our future, and to chatter. It’s also Canada’s once and, we hope, future economic growth engine.We need to keep this in mind now that Ontario is in an election, and as the party leaders tour the province in hope of winning the support of unsuspecting voters. They will do this by kissing babies and shaking hands (confusing the two is a definite no-no).The leaders will say optimistic things, criticize their opponents and, we hope, propose fresh ideas. The fresh ideas part is the part that moves the province forward. So far, so good.

But not all ideas are equal. They should fit the times, and address the biggest problems. It is also not a good thing if the proposed ideas make the existing problems even worse. In some cases those new ideas might one day become the biggest problem. This is where the toothy Kathleen Wynne should walk on the stage, smiling, though I’m not sure why she’s smiling.

Ontario’s economy has struggled for years. Sure, as the U.S. economy eventually recovers, Ontario will get towed along behind it, but waiting for another economy to emerge from recession is not a strategy; it’s the lack of a strategy.

So instead of bringing forward new ideas on the economy, the Liberals have essentially declared that it’s not the economy stupid, it’s — get ready for it — retirement income.

Unfortunately, Wynne’s Ontario Retirement Pension Plan idea would actually hold back the kind of recovery that could one day make her pension plan idea more feasible. Oh, the delicious and fattening irony.

That said, the Liberals have not even established that Ontarians require more retirement income. They certainly haven’t made the case that it’s a higher priority than creating jobs, resource development in the Ring of Fire, a sensible energy policy that allows manufacturing to compete, or half a dozen other pressing needs. She is fleeing from those issues, because if she is forced to speak to them she’ll have to acknowledge that her government after a decade in power has not made the progress that it should have made. Their handling of the energy file alone should be a firing offence.

PC Leader Tim Hudak has not set Ontario aflame with his fiery rhetoric or his charisma. Instead he has stayed relevant by hanging in there and not doing anything stupid. Most importantly, his instincts are right. He has set his sights clearly on working-class Ontario with his Million Jobs Plan. He understands that your employer can’t pay into your pension plan if you don’t have an employer because you don’t have a job. That might seem obvious, but not obvious enough that the other two leaders have acted accordingly. Still Hudak must add details to his plan and be credible in selling it.

This is far from a slam dunk for Hudak. Kathleen Wynne remains personally popular. Almost everything hinges on the vagaries of the campaign and whether Ontarians have had enough to want change.

Help PEFCN and APPEC fight the Wind Turbines! Here’s how!

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Big Yard Sale on May 24 to benefit PECFN and APPEC legal funds — Donate items / Find treasures

MAY 12

Posted by 

YARD SALE

SATURDAY MAY 24, 2014

(rain date May 25)

9 am to 4 pm

14011 HIGHWAY # 33

FUNDRAISER FOR PECFN AND APPEC

Spring cleaning?

Why not put aside those unwanted items that someone else may be able to use and support the legal funds to stop wind turbines in the County.

Large donations can be dropped off at 7 am the day of the sale at the big barn, 14011 Highway #33, near corner of County Rd 32.

Alternatively, pick up of larger saleable items (no junk or bedding please) can be arranged by emailing contactus@appec.ca .  Include your name, address, phone number and brief description of item(s).

Small items can dropped off at Royal LePage, 104 Main Street Picton from Wednesday May 21 to Friday May 23.

Donate and/or come out to the Yard Sale on May 24 and find a treasure.

Tickets for the South Marysburgh Heritage House and Winery Tour will be available to purchase at the Yard Sale.

 

The Wind Industry is on Financial Life Support – PULL THE PLUG!

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Australian Wind Industry’s House of Cards Collapsing

May 12, 2014 by 

turbine collapse-1

With Australia’s wind industry in its death throes, STT has already given fair warning to bankers, investors and shareholders with so much as a cent in wind power companies to grab their cash and get out as fast they can (see our post here).

All-wind-power-outfits – like our favourite whipping boys, Infigen – are losing money hand over fist – and have little more to do than to watch their share prices plummet and await a knock on the door from a receiver or liquidator.

As is often the way, financial troubles spread like a contagious disease – the latest to catch the “bug” is Hydro Tasmania.

STT followers will remember Hydro Tasmania as the bunch of liars and thugs that have ridden roughshod over King Island in an effort to spear 250 giant fans all over the jewel of Bass Strait.

In the first round, Hydro Tasmania promised King Island locals that unless 60% supported their planned project, they would simply abandon it – by dropping their planned “feasibility study” (see our posts here andhere). Hydro Tasmania then set about buying the votes it needed to show 60% supporting its project (see our post here).

Those shovelling Hydro Tasmania’s cash out to bribe the locals must have flunked basic arithmetic, because they only managed to muster 58.7% of the vote. But, never mind, Hydro Tasmania simply ignored its earlier promise and launched into its feasibility study, anyway (see our post here). So much for keeping promises.

But, as they say: “what goes around, comes around”.

Hydro Tasmania is losing 10s of $millions on their existing Tasmanian wind farm operations – Musselroe and Woolnorth – and look set to lose 100s of $millions more. And, in the irony of ironies, it’s blaming the Federal Government’s RET Review and the threat that the Government will breach its “promise” to retain the mandatory Renewable Energy Target.

Here’s The Australian on Hydro Tasmania’s date with bad Karma.

Green energy firm Hydro Tasmania faces $20m loss
The Australian
Matthew Denholm
10 May 2014

AUSTRALIA’S largest renewable energy producer, Hydro Tasmania, faces projected losses of up to $20 million a year on wind power deals and blames uncertainty surrounding the Renewable Energy Target.

The state-owned company also revealed it had suspended major spending on $3.6 billion in new wind projects in Australia while the target of 20 per cent by 2020 is reviewed by the Abbott government. Hydro Tasmania chief executive Stephen Davy said significant cuts to the RET could see existing wind farms prematurely abandoned and trigger demands for taxpayer compensation.

A planning document, leaked to The Weekend Australian, shows Hydro Tasmania’s power-purchasing agreements for its major Tasmanian wind farms – Musselroe and Woolnorth – will return a $12.5m loss this financial year, rising to $20.6m in 2014-15. Cumulative losses total $103.6m by 2018-19, according to the document, the authenticity of which was confirmed by the company.

Mr Davy blamed the projected losses largely on uncertainty surrounding the RET, being reviewed amid a push from business, industry and elements of the Coalition to reduce or abolish it to cut power prices.

He said the projections were pessimistic and only part of the equation on wind farm profit­ability, but reflected a significant market decline linked to the pending abolition of the carbon tax and uncertainty on the RET. “Since the time the power purchase agreements were negotiated for these wind farms, there has been significant decline in the market, including the impact of the anticipated removal of a price on carbon,” Mr Davy said. “The market decline has been exacerbated by continued uncertainty about the future of the RET. The ongoing review of the RET has created a lot of uncertainty around wind farm revenues.”

Hydro Tasmania is a major player in renewable energy, particularly through its Chinese wind farm joint venture partners Shenhua Clean Energy.

The Musselroe and Woolnorth wind farms are owned by Woolnorth Wind Farm Holdings, a joint venture between the two companies. The companies have $1.6bn in plans to develop, build and operate a further 700MW of wind farms in Australia by 2020. Separately, Hydro, which exports power to mainland Australia, is investigating a $2bn plan to build the southern hemisphere’s largest wind farm on King Island.

As lobbying intensifies ahead of next week’s closure of submissions for the RET review, Mr Davy said all major expenditure on new wind farms was on hold: “We won’t be able to commit large amounts of money further developing those opportunities until the RET is reaffirmed.”

He warned abolition of the RET would kill off all future wind farm developments.
The Australian

Isn’t it just delicious to hear an accomplished rent seeker – that couldn’t keep the simplest of the promises it made to King Island locals – whining about the Coalition planning to amend (or scrap) the largest (and, hopefully, the last “great”) corporate welfare scheme in the history of the Commonwealth?

The idea that the 41,000 GWh figure set for the large-scale mandatory RET represents some immutable law – or even an implicit promise to maintain that figure – represents wishful thinking at its very best.

The Renewable Energy Act expressly provides for a review of the target to be carried out every 2 years (click here for the relevant section). To believe that the figure – once set – would only ever be maintained or increased – is naive in the extreme – for a company to base its entire business model on it, is just plain stupid.

What is perplexing, though, is how Hydro Tasmania can blame the RET review for losses already incurred? The mandatory RET is, as yet, unchanged, so how can the mere fact of the review (which was only announced in January this year) have caused any booked-losses at all?

STT suspects that Hydro Tasmania has made some “bone-head” plays with its Power Purchase Agreements and/or by banking on a high and rising price for Renewable Energy Certificates.

One likely scenario, is that Hydro Tasmania set a price in its PPAs based on a REC price significantly higher than the prices actually realised (since November last year, RECs have fallen from around $37 to $27 now); or that it has made some bad calls betting in the REC’s futures market. Either way, to blame a regulatory change that hasn’t happened is complete nonsense.

Having said that, Hydro Tasmania is clearly on to something: for wind power companies, the worst is yet to come.

The Treasurer, Joe Hockey sent the wind industry and its parasites into a tailspin after his recent interview with Alan Jones – when he branded wind turbines “a blight on the landscape” and “utterly offensive”. However, it’s what he went on to say about the “age of entitlement” that has wind power investors quaking in their boots (see our posts here and here).

During the interview, Hockey mentioned Coalition plans to scrap the Clean Energy Regulator (CER). Shortly afterwards it was reported from “government sources” that there were no plans to scrap the CER – and that what Joe was referring to was the Coalition’s plan to scrap the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which has been on the cards since well before the election last September.

The media heat generated by Hockey’s interview on Alan Jones has stirred more than just passing interest from other Coalition members – who hitherto have had little knowledge of, or interest in, the cost of the mandatory RET or the workings of the CER.

Dozens of Coalition members are now transfixed by the insane cost of the mandatory RET (and the relevance and cost of the CER) – in much the same way that our attention gets drawn to a car crash – no matter how much twisted metal, blood and gore, we find it next to impossible to look away or move on.

The CER – which purports to administer the mandatory RET – is under the control of Environment Minister, Greg Hunt. Since Hockey’s interview, young Greg has been bombarded by his Coalition colleagues demanding to know why he plans to retain the CER at all.

As to the fate of the mandatory RET, one earlier idea floated internally by the Coalition was that the annual large-scale target would be reduced from 41,000 GWh to something between 23-27,000 GWh. That much reduced target would then be met by simply sweeping up anything that vaguely constituted “renewable energy” that hasn’t previously been counted towards meeting the current target. On that scenario, there will be no need for any further renewable energy capacity.

However, the same growing gang of Coalition members calling on Greg Hunt to axe the CER, are now calling for the mandatory RET to be scrapped outright. STT hears that Hunt was told by one member last week: “what are we doing, let’s just kill it now”. Oh dear!

The wind industry is nothing more than a house of cards: remove the coercion placed on retailers by the mandatory RET to take insanely expensive, intermittent and unreliable wind power and it will all collapse in a heartbeat.

house-of-cards

 

Marilyn has compiled a list of Liberal blunders. Yes! It is a Very….Long….List…..

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Colette Berthiaume
Colette Berthiaume   May 11
Marilyn TaylorI’ve been tracking Liberal scandals and mishaps for 11 years.

It’s important that people are reminded of the Liberal’s dismal failure in office.
Marilyn Taylor’s List of Liberal Scandals:
Green Energy Act (20 billion)
eHealth scandal (almost 2 billion)
Gas plant scandal (1.1 billion theft and cover-up of our tax dollars)
ORNGE scandal (700 million)
Ontario Northland Railway scandal (820 million)
Caledonia Hydro Line scandal (116 million)
Lobbyist scandal (two multi-million dollar scandals)
Eco-Fee Reversal scandal (18 million)
CancerCare Ontario scandal (millions of dollars)
Slush Fund scandal (32 million)
Niagara Falls Commission scandal
Ontario Power Generation scandal
Children’s Aid Society scandal
Nanticoke Coal Power Plant Shutdown scandal
G20 Secretly Approved Police Power scandal
Auto Insurance scandal
Foreign Scholarships scandal (our students pay the highest tuition in Canada while foreign students get free university educations)
Offshore Wind Turbines scandal
Samsung scandal (sole-sourcing)
Pan Am scandal (cost increase from 1.4 to 2.5 billion)
MPAC scandal (over and under-valuation of properties)
OLG scandal (millions of dollars)
Chemotherapy Dosage scandal
Payout for Pan Am CEO (250 million)
Trillium Wind Power and Sky Power Limited lawsuit (500 million)
Cement company lawsuit (275 million) – Quarry outside Hamilton was scuttled for political reasons
School bus service lawsuit
Augusta/Westland lawsuit as it pertains to ORNGE
Elliot Lake Collapse lawsuits (two lives lost due to recovery delays)
Ontario Medical Association lawsuits – applied to Superior Court alleging McGuinty not negotiating in “good faith”
Breast Screening scandal (ensuing lawsuits due to thousands of misread mammograms, one life lost)
Class-action lawsuit for autism funding cancellation
Over 650 new agencies, boards, commissions and entities such as LHIN’s and CCAC’s
Over 300,000 new public servants many of whom, are on the sunshine list
Public sector employment in health care increased by 39%
Public sector employment in social services increased by 39%
Public sector employment in education increased by 34%
Paying more Liberal taxes only to receive fewer services as taxes now being spent to pay the salaries and perks of newly-assigned, Liberal-friendly public servants
Gutted our manufacturing base (job growth across Canada except in Ontario)
One million Ontarians now out of work
Increased spending by 80% while our economy grew by only 9%
More than doubled our debt to 288 billion
Running a 11.3 billion annual deficit
Debt servicing costs will rise from 11.4 billion today to 14.5 billion once the debt exceeds 300 billion by 2017-18
Interest payments on our debt now the third largest budget expenditure after health and education
Task Force on Competitiveness, Productivity and Economic Progress confirmed that McGuinty’s Green Energy Act grossly underestimated the cost to consumers and overestimated the number of new jobs that would be created
Tax collectors getting 45,000.00 severance packages for switching job titles from provincial to federal
Two ministries under an OPP criminal investigation – ORNGE and gas plant scandals
Pharmacy war
Illegal green taxes
Increased smart meter, electricity, hydro, tuition and car insurance costs
Implemented tire tax, electronics tax, eco fee, health premium (tax), WSIB tax increase, HST, beer surtax
Failing grade on ADHD education
Ranking the lowest of all provinces for fiscal performance
Delisting eye exams, physiotherapy, chiropractic care, diabetic strips, etc.
Increasing wait time for cataract surgery
No longer covered for eye exams yet taxpayers paying for sex changes
Wait time for nursing home bed tripled
Failure to disclose elevated radiation levels
OES missed its collection and recycling targets by 59%
Not correcting the foreign ownership of our beer market
Acceptance of garbage striker extortion
Harassing labour inspectors
Kowtowing to green energy lobbies
Imposing blood alcohol rules that punish people who are not impaired
Public utilities donating to Liberals
Voting to cover up the Niagara Parks Commission scandal
Emergency room wait times not meeting provincial targets
Put on notice by Standard and Poor, credit rating downgraded, under a very serious credit watch
Have-not province for the first time in Canadian history
Borrowing more debt than any province except NB
Dramatic cuts in health care services in schools
Nurses getting bonuses despite a wage freeze
Insufficient senior homecare services
Failing grade of Family Responsibility Office
Abstained from vote to investigate CBC expenses
Cash kickback scheme involving government cleaning contracts that ended with the conviction of Liberal officials
Talked about a two-year freeze on wages for public sector while previously giving the OPP a 5% wage increase – the OPP received another raise of over 8% in January, 2014
Energy now unaffordable yet we must pay Quebec and some north-eastern States to take our surplus energy
Encouraging farmers to build small-scale solar projects but having no way to connect them to the power grid
Laid up in US hospital beds as no beds available in Ontario
Refusing public inquiry into G20 fiasco
Giving those who hire only newcomers a 10,000.00 tax credit
Third highest user of food banks
Announced pay freezes knowing that 38,000 were getting a 3% salary increase after the election
Hiding hospital errors from the public
Teachers skipping classes to assist with anti-Conservative campaign
Failing grade in northern forestry management
Almost 40 C. difficile deaths to date
Loss of 6,500 cancer patient health records
Highest rent increase rate in years
Ignoring evidence that wind turbines can cause poor health
Workers at eHealth suing for not receiving bonuses
Liam denied eye care that another child is receiving under OHIP
Ontarians pleading for their lives or dying because they aren’t getting the health care they need
Lady with a brain tumor denied help to cover costs which costs are covered in Manitoba
Electricity rates to rise 42% over five years
Prior loss of 60,000 jobs in the horse racing industry – now attempting to correct this
Presto
Ring of Fire
Muslims praying in our public funded school system while the Lord’s prayer is banned
A pedophile was developing the Liberal’s sex education curriculum
Millions spent to remove the “C” from OLG when Ontario Lottery & Gaming Corporation was changed to Ontario Lottery & Gaming
McGuinty defunded the Centre for Forensic Sciences throwing a world-renowned police team who specialized in retrieving deleted computer files out of work two months before he resigned
Millions spent to needlessly redesign our provincial logo
Legal rights of Ontarians disregarded relative to the Caledonia-Mohawk matter
Education minister signing off on documents that she doesn’t even read
More to come….fresh scandals daily…..

Unless we get a Conservative Majority….this will be our fate!!!

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Constraint payments in Scotland soar by 1,300%

Posted on 11/05/2014by 

Stirling CastleFrom the Times, 11th May 2014

PAYMENTS to green energy firms under a controversial government scheme that compensates them for wasted power have soared by more than 1,300%.

About £35m has been awarded since the start of the financial year to the owners of 21 renewables projects — all of them in Scotland — because Britain’s power network could not cope with the energy they produced.

The figure is a huge increase on the £2.4m paid in 2011-12 under the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change’s “connect and manage” scheme.

Campaigners warn the compensation payments, paid for by the public through their electricity bills, will continue to increase as more wind farms are built. A 2009 report by Frontier Economics for regulator Ofgem estimated the cost of the scheme would reach £2bn by 2020.

A Question not asked, or answered, yet is would constraint payments be made to a foreign country in the wake of a YES vote on the Independence issue. No doubt Salmond will say ‘YES’ and Danny Alexander ‘NO’. The SNP cadre will blame Westminster, again! But then when did you start believing what any politician says, especially “Tipp ‘Eck”! If it adds cost to rUK fuel bills I think the answer is self evident. Not politically acceptable to the the rUK electorate! Even Milibean should see that 😡 .

 

 

Our only Chance, to repair Damage done by McWynnty Gov’t….A Conservative Majority!!

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John Raymond Crawford 5:03pm May 11
Provincial Popularity Contest: Hudak not interested, winning, regardless.

May 6th: http://globalnews.ca/news/1313199/ontario-pc-leader-tim-hudak-admits-he-may-not-be-popular/

Hudak admits he won’t win a popularity contest.

May 7th: http://ww2.nationalpost.com/m/wp/blog.html?b=news.nationalpost.com%2F2014%2F05%2F07%2Fformer-top-pc-says-tim-hudak-cannot-win-a-popularity-contest-kathleen-wynne-will-be-re-elected

Hudak told that it IS a popularity contest. Critics name Kathleen Wynne as future winner of popularity contest, predicting liberal minority.

May 11th: http://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/politics/i-m-not-running-a-popularity-contest-ontario-pc-leader-says-1.1816473

Interesting polls: http://www.cp24.com/news/notes-from-the-campaign-trail-poll-gives-tories-lead-1.1815013

Hudak: ‘I’m not running a popularity contest.’

As of recent polls, asking ‘who would make the best premier’, Hudak leads Wynne by 5-points (34% to 29%), with Horwath in third at 28%.

Recent polls suggest that among likely voters, Conservatives are the most committed to getting to the polls, with NDP voters the least committed. The Conservatives have 44% support among voters who ‘will only miss voting due to an unexpected emergency’.

Hudak joked that he didnt want: “…the power of Hudak mania to overwhelm the power of our ideas.”
(Source: May 11th link).

Hudak’s personal popularity is up two points. 72% of voters want a new government. This is up 4 points this month.

The NDP has remained relatively quiet, and are appartently waiting for the political discourse to shift away from who initiated the election in the first place. Expect the NDP to make a late push, and split the left, as Horwath’s strong popularity polling reasserts itself once voters forgive her for tossing out a government that nobody liked.

It’s more likely to be a Conservative minority or majority.

Hudak is set to stick on-point to a simple job-oriented message, and avoid the ‘foreign workers’ style blunders that hurt him last time around.

Support for Hudak continues to rise as he comes out of the gate, controlling the political conversation with a bold plan, balanced by crystal-clear talking points. “This Campaign is about Jobs.” -Hudak

Vote Conservative. -John Crawford


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Unsustainable Renewable Energy Scam, showing fallout, as the pyramid crumbles.

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Sun Sets on Spaniards’ Solar Power Dreams

World | Agence France-Presse | Updated: May 11, 2014 11:10 IST

Sun Sets on Spaniards' Solar Power Dreams

AFP

The sun is reflected in a solar panel in a field of Mahora, near eastern Spanish city of Albacete on May 7, 2014.

Albacete:  “The sun could be yours,” the Spanish government promised in 2007, encouraging citizens to invest in solar power. Many who did now wish they could give it back.

Tens of thousands of indebted Spaniards have found themselves lumbered with fields full of expensive solar panels whose subsidies have been unexpectedly cut in the financial crisis.

“How do I feel? Completely fooled,” said David Utiel, a 37-year-old teacher who invested in a solar plant, recalling the government’s sunshine slogan.

“Fooled, swindled, disappointed, disgusted.”

He was one of the 62,000 ordinary citizens in Spain who campaign groups say have been caught in a financial sun trap.

Along with 23 of his neighbours from Madrigueras, near the eastern city of Albecete, he jointly owns nearly 360 solar panels which stand in a field of wild grass and red poppies.

“It was the government that gave us the idea,” he said, walking at the foot of the vast black panels.

“It was supposed to be a good idea to put your money in the whole solar energy thing. They said it could be very profitable.”

In return for promises of a regular return, he invested 450,000 euros ($620,000) in the field in 2007.

“We are completely ordinary people, country people from the village. Some of us work in education, some in farming, others in small businesses,” he said.

“The idea was not to go chasing after subsidies and become millionaires or anything like that. It was to have some kind of pension.”

Long favoured by the state, renewable energies are now feeling the pain of Spain’s economic austerity policies.

Spain’s government is taking drastic measures to slash a 26-billion-euro electricity deficit after years of paying subsidies to keep prices down.

– Betting the farm –
“It’s the government that encouraged us to invest our savings to generate solar energy,” said Miguel Angel Martinez-Roca, president of ANPIER, an association of small sun power producers.

“It then started to apply retroactive cuts by law once the solar plants were already built. They changed the rules half way through the game.”

UNEF, another solar energy association, estimates that since 2007 earnings by owners of solar panels have fallen by up to half in the worst cases, with losses varying according to the type of installation.

It estimated that the complex series of subsidy cuts would cost owners 920 million euros in 2014.

Meanwhile solar companies owe 22 billion euros to the banks, it says.

“It’s a frankly awful situation. Thousands of Spanish citizens are trapped,” lumbered with solar plants costly to maintain, weak revenues and loans, said Martinez-Roca.

David, who mortgaged his house for the solar investment, has received just 3,000 euros in aid in the past six months, six times less than he pays in maintenance and loan repayments.

Another local man, Manuel Alonso Caballero, 39, left his job in the airport sector to set up his own solar power plant.

He says he invested nearly 1.5 million euros and risks losing it all. His farmer parents have had to mortgage their house as his guarantors.

“I went into the solar business because I really believed what they were saying and I really believed in renewable energy, but I realise now that I was wrong,” he said.

“I’ve lost any trust I had and I wouldn’t invest another euro in Spain.”

ANPIER has lodged complaints in the courts against the state and vows to turn to the European Union authorities if its case in Spain fails.

Martinez-Roca said the group is calling a demonstration in Madrid on June 21 against the government.

“We are not prepared to let them ruin us, insult us and cheat us like this.”