liberal fail!

We Desperately Need a Conservative Gov’t to Repair Damage Done by Liberals!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

National Post editorial board: A Conservative government for Ontario

National Post Editorial Board | June 7, 2014 12:01 AM ET

We believe Mr. Hudak is the principled, competent, strong-willed and compassionate fiscal conservative Ontario needs.

Tyler Anderson/National PostWe believe Mr. Hudak is the principled, competent, strong-willed and compassionate fiscal conservative Ontario needs.

It is difficult to overstate just how richly the Ontario Liberals deserve to be removed from office. It is difficult even to know where to begin.

As managers of public services they are, in the most charitable interpretation, famously inept. Witness the scandal at ORNGE, the non-profit set up to run the province’s air ambulance service, which soon devolved into a byzantine scheme to redirect public money into various private wallets. Witness the scandal at eHealth, which the auditor general found to have spent $1-billion comprehensively bungling efforts to create an electronic health records system. Witness former premier Dalton McGuinty’s signature green-energy initiative, which has seen electricity rates skyrocket even as the province exports electricity at a huge loss.

Indeed, Ontario’s Liberals are incredibly cavalier with public money. Witness the disbursement of some $30-million in grants to multicultural organizations, many with Liberal ties, in many cases based simply on ministers’ requests. (Who can forget the Ontario Cricket Association asking for $150,000 and getting $1-million?) Witness, most egregiously, the epic squandering of $1-billion to cancel two locally unpopular gas-fired power plants — plants Mr. McGuinty had unctuously defended against NIMBYism until he decided a few Liberal seats might be at risk, at which point he eliminated them with the stroke of a pen and his office busied itself covering up the matter. (Police are investigating. On Thursday they served a court order for documents at Queen’s Park, and confirmed they had questioned Mr. McGuinty.)

Simon Hayter for National Post

Simon Hayter for National PostViolence breaks out between white residents of Caledonia, native protestors and the O. P. P. at the Native barricade in Caledonia on Monday, May 22 2006.

When violent aboriginal protesters occupied the town of Caledonia in 2006, Mr. McGuinty’s government instructed the provincial police force to stand down, and eventually caved to the thugs outright — buying the land, and embattled homeowners’ silence, on the public dime. (During the 2011 election campaign, he told the National Post’s editorial board he was proud of how he handled the issue.)

And if a decade of amoral, path-of-least-resistance ineptitude isn’t enough, just consider the bottom line. In 2004-05, the first full year of Liberal governance, Ontario’s net debt per capita was $11,373. Today it stands at $19,881, an increase of 75%. As a share of GDP, Ontario’s debt has risen from 27% to 39%. Among large provinces, only Quebec can play in that league — and on Wednesday Premier Philippe Couillard unveiled a budget that sets the stage for the tough choices that province will need to make to keep the bond raters at bay.

When Conservative leader Tim Hudak pressed Ms. Wynne for specific examples of how she would cut spending, she could only stammer something about more government investment

We can hardly say the same of the budget Ms. Wynne tabled on May 1, and which she promises to reintroduce within 20 days of reelection. It maintains the Liberal promise of a balanced budget by 2017-18. But it does so while significantly inflating projected deficits in the meantime, completely abandoning Mr. McGuinty’s late-days commitment to belt-tightening — notably a wage freeze for public sector workers — and offering precious little explanation as to how it would manage to get spending under control. In a damaging segment of Tuesday night’s leaders debate, when Conservative leader Tim Hudak pressed Ms. Wynne for specific examples of how she would cut spending, she could only stammer something about more government investment.

It’s not even clear we can expect any improvement from Ms. Wynne on the ethics file: She is currently defending the emergency $300-million bailout of a failed government-backed office building project in downtown Toronto as just another real estate deal. And having promised never again to direct public money toward partisan purposes, she abruptly committed billions to a subway project into east-end Toronto, replacing a light rail project the Liberals had supported — conveniently enough, right in the middle of a local byelection campaign.

The sensible alternative to re-electing the Liberals yet again is clearly Mr. Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives. Mr. Hudak has mounted an unusually and admirably blunt campaign premised on Ontario’s desperate need for austerity. He promises to balance the budget in two years. His platform, wisely, is focused entirely on job-creation. But instead of throwing money at businesses to create jobs they might or might not have created anyway, as the Liberals do proudly, Mr. Hudak proposes a more egalitarian sort of incentive — lowering Ontario’s corporate tax rate from 11.5% to 8%, wrestling down electricity costs (in part through winding down the Liberals’ green energy policies) and cutting regulation.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole BurstonTeachers carry picket signs outside then-premier Dalton McGuinty’s office on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2012 in Ottawa.

Mr. Hudak also promises, though not in so many words, war with Ontario’s public sector unions. He proposes paring the public sector workforce significantly through attrition, contracting out and eliminating needless middle management — though he notes that this would serve merely to take us back to 2009 staffing levels. He promises a two-year wage freeze, across the board, no exceptions — not even for the Ontario Provincial Police Association, which has responded with a shameful hissy-fit attack ad campaign. He would shutter the College of Trades, a needless level of union-friendly bureaucracy, and return regulation to the government’s direct purview where it belongs. And he would scrap the outrageous arbitration framework that awards public sector contracts with no consideration of the government’s ability to pay.

Notwithstanding some of the glitches in Mr. Hudak’s campaign materials, he brings a common sense perspective to governance that Ontario desperately needs — and not just on the baseline fiscal issues that are critical for Ontario’s future. To take just three examples: In opposition, the Tories have supported imposing limits on third-party election advertising, the lack of which allows the labour movement to vastly outspend the parties themselves in a thinly veiled campaign for the Liberals; placing skill, commitment and other professional qualities above seniority as criteria for hiring teachers; and adding a dram of competition to Ontario’s bizarre and sclerotic liquor retail system.

In short, we believe Mr. Hudak is the principled, competent, strong-willed and compassionate fiscal conservative Ontario needs.

National Post

Wind Turbines Can’t Exist Without Extravagant handouts!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

German Energy Giant E.On says: It’s Time for Wind Power to Grow Up

June 7, 2014 by 

Peter-Pan-disney-200177_490_430

The wind industry is a lot like Peter Pan – the eternal child, who will fight, kick and scream to avoid the stark reality of adulthood.

How often have we heard the yarn about wind power needing a fat pile of subsidies (filched from taxpayers and power consumers) for just that little bit longer to help it “mature”? And how, if the subsidies are cut off just now, we will snuff out a “brilliant, clean, green” renewable energy future?

In the week just gone we’ve had Infigen’s Miles “Boy” George doing the rounds on “friendly” media outlets like the ABC and Fairfax Press.

Miles – seemingly confused about what hat he was supposed to be wearing – was out touting on behalf of the Clean Energy Council and his employer – the near bankrupt all wind-power-outfit – Infigen (akaBabcock and Brown).

The “message” was more than just a little mixed: was it a plea to the RET Review Panel for mercy?; or a veiled threat to the Coalition government?; or a pitch to garner public support for his beleaguered company? Hard to say, really.

But Miles had a couple of clear-ish “themes”. One was the current drivel about wind power being so competitive with conventional generators that it’s driving down power prices (as to which we’ll return below); the other was a desperate pitch to save the mandatory RET. The internal inconsistency in Mile’s case would be obvious to a 9 year old: if wind power is now so cheap to deliver, why does it need a mandated target to force retailers to purchase it – backed up with the threat of a $65 per MW/h fine for failing to meet the target – and the promise of a Renewable Energy Certificate that should be worth more than the fine?

Actions belie words. The wind industry – Infigen in particular – know full well that without the mandatory RET and RECs (at a price greater than $90) there will never be another wind farm built in Australia – and those that have been, will be left to rust in the paddock as a testament to the collective stupidity of our political betters. The current media blitz by Infigen is all about keeping the gravy train rolling for that little bit longer.

For Infigen, however, Mile’s media-storm is a case of too little, too late. Over the last few months, fewer than 10,000 of Infigen’s shares have beentrading on a daily basis: in the week just gone, that figure has soared to over 11 million.

Infigen trades2

Infigen trades 1

Infigen’s shares are being dumped by institutional investors – during the week, British outfit, Leo Fund Managers offloaded close to 4 million shares (see this notice); and we hear that Macquarie Bank issued a warning to all brokers and investors on Friday to keep well clear of what it sees as a looming corporate collapse.

Market insiders tell us that Infigen’s share price is being kept artificially stable (at around $0.20) by Infigen (and/or its management) buying its own shares. If the share price falls below $0.19 Infigen’s banker will consider it in breach of its lending agreement (on the basis that the company’s equity value is less than permitted under the agreement); entitling the bank to call in the loan and appoint a receiver. Remember, this is an outfit that backed up a $55 million loss in 2011/12 with an $80 million loss, last financial year (see our post here). And those considerable losses were racked up when all the regulatory cards were firmly stacked in Infigen’s favour.

Infigen’s collapse is, surely, just a heartbeat away?

Anyway, back to the perpetually “infant” wind industry. Just as here, the German renewables sector is bemoaning the fact that the subsidy stream is all set to dry up.

German energy giant, E.On has called for the infant to grow up, demanding an end to subsidies and, quite rightly, calling for wind and solar power to stand on their own two feet. Here’s the Telegraph on the German effort to wean wind power from the public teat.

Stop feeding renewable energy beast, urges E.On
The Telegraph
Emily Gosden
3 June 2014

German energy giant’s chief says technologies such as wind and solar are no longer in their infancy so must not be given special treatment.

European governments must stop handing generous subsidies to green energy technologies, the head of energy giant E.On has warned.

Johannes Teyssen said that renewable power sources, such as wind and solar, were no longer in their infancy, so to continue to hand them special treatment had a distortive effect.

Speaking in London at the annual conference of Eurelectric, the European electricity industry body of which he is president, Mr Teyssen said: “10 years ago renewables were in an immature state and needed to be nurtured.

“Today they are the biggest animal in the zoo and if you continue to treat them as imbeciles and feed them baby nutrition you will just get a sick big cat.”

He claimed the only people blocking debate about ending financial aid for renewables were those who “just want to harvest subsidies without accountability”.

Mr Teyssen has argued that Europe must scrap all “green levies” that are used to subsidise renewables. He has said he supports such technologies but that the funding model is wrong and Europe should instead install a proper carbon price to drive the market to find the most cost-effective ways of going green.

E.On, like most European utilities, is losing money from its gas-fired power plants as expansion of renewable energy and cheap coal prices mean they are only called upon to run for short periods of time. It has already mothballed some plants and experts warn more closures could leave Europe at risk of power cuts at times of peak demand when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow.

In the UK, the Conservative party has pledged to end subsidies for onshore wind power if it wins the next election. However, it appears committed to offshore wind, which is a newer technology but still significantly more expensive.

The Government has already announced it is closing a subsidy scheme for large-scale solar farms two years early and take-up exceeded expectations.

Mr Teyssen also warned that the energy industry must do more to attract employees at a time when some companies were seeing “whole management teams leaving” and it was “difficult to attract young people to this industry”. “We have been under fire for years and years,” he said. “We need to rebuild confidence.”
The Telegraph 

The constant apology heard from the wind industry and its parasites challenged about the insane cost of wind power is that the wind industry won’t need subsidies for much longer, because it’s just about to “mature”.

Piffle about the wind industry being able to (one day) reach “maturity” has been peddled for over 30 years. When will it be mature? When the wind starts blowing 24 x 7? When turbines have an economic lifespan of 50 years instead of 10? When?

Of course, the wind industry and its parasites are quite happy to continue leaching from us – playing us for suckers – while telling us that “maturity” is just over the horizon.

Wind power has been wet nursed with mountains of subsidies from the beginning and requires babysitters like extra “spinning reserve” held by gas and coal thermal generators and fast start-up peaking power plants (ie Open Cycle Gas Turbines and diesel generators) just to keep the lights on.

Fortunately, the RET Review Panel isn’t the least bit interested in helping the wind industry to “mature” – its stated aim is to analyse, model and forecast “the cost impacts of renewable energy in the electricity sector” (see our post here).

With Australia’s wind industry gasping its last breath, as noted above, Miles George (as both head spruiker for the Clean Energy Council and as Infigen’s hopeful saviour) has been peddling the incredible tale that wind power has led to a REDUCTION in our power bills. A claim of such stupendous nonsense that even Humpty Dumpty would have had a hard time keeping a straight face in telling it.

Wind power generation (the product of the mandatory RET – which has been in operation since 2001) has been a key contributor to Australian household electricity costs rising 110 per cent in the past 5 years. South Australia – Australia’s wind power capital – has the highest retail power prices in the world as a result of its great wind rush (see our post here). Although, the way the Miles George plays it, it’s as if we hadn’t noticed.

But step back a moment. Let’s take Miles George at his word.

If it were true – as Miles asserts – that wind power was in fact delivering power at prices equal to or less than conventional generation sources – so as to lower retail power prices – then why the need for the mandatory RET?

Why the need for Renewable Energy Certificates? Why the need for the shortfall charge (fine) of $65 per MWh for every MW the retailer falls short of the mandated RET, which “encourages” (we mean “forces”) retailers to enter Power Purchase Agreements and, thereby, purchase RECs from wind power generators? Why the need for unsecured, taxpayer underwritten loans from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation or ARENA Fund?

If there was a shred of substance to the Mile’s story then, surely, wind power generators wouldn’t need any extra pennies from hard pressed power punters – in the form of RECs, or at all; nor would they need to have inbuilt legislative threats to retailers to purchase RECs; and there would be no need for “soft money” to back their projects.

In an unfettered market, retailers and power consumers would be knocking each other over in the rush to get the cheapest power around; and, what with all those willing customers for wind power, there wouldn’t be any need for taxpayer subsidised loans from the CEFC or ARENA Fund – commercial lenders would be piling in to wind power projects, ready to reap the returns.  But, funnily enough, that just ain’t happening; and nor will it.

Instead, we get “die in a ditch” media efforts by the likes of Infigen’s/CEC’s Miles George to ensure the government retains the mandatory RET at its current 41,000 GWh annual target – and to, therefore, preserve the REC price, at all costs.

So which is it, Miles?

Is wind power really competitive with conventional generation sources? If so, then there’s simply no need for a mandated target at all – this stuff will sell itself.

Or is wind power simply the product of ideological nonsense – a power generation source which can only ever be delivered at crazy, random intervals – requiring 100% of its capacity to be backed up 100% of the time by fossil fuel generation sources, including ridiculously expensive OCGTs (with that exorbitant, additional and unnecessary cost borne by power consumers) – and which, for wind power generation to be commercial, has to be sold to retailers at guaranteed rates 3-4 times the cost of conventional sources, as stipulated in Power Purchase Agreements with retailers?

The wind industry pitch is like the slacker school student – perpetually failing, but always promising to do better next term: full of “excuses” and always ready to cut a bargain in order to get that one, final chance at redemption.

And, like the lazy student, the wind industry’s pleas for mercy are falling on increasingly dry and barren ground; the audience has heard it all before. The only proper response to the perpetual infant is: “grow up”.

With the Coalition itching to scrap the mandatory RET, the Australian wind industry is finally about the get the chance to prove its maturity. However, from Miles George’s desperate media pleas, a chance at maturity is the very last thing the wind industry wants, now or ever.

brat

No End In Sight, To Liberal Scandals and Corruption!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment
News / Ontario Election 2014

Ontario auditor general investigating government loans to MaRS

Ontario’s auditor general is investigating provincial government

loans to MaRS, but says the probe was planned before the $317 million

bailout erupted into an election issue last week.

Ontario auditor general Bonnie Lysyk is auditing Infrastructure Ontario’s loans program, including loans to the MaRS research organization.

FRANK GUNN / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO

Ontario auditor general Bonnie Lysyk is auditing Infrastructure Ontario’s loans program, including loans to the MaRS research organization.

By:  Queen’s Park Bureau, Published on Thu Jun 05 2014

WELLAND, ONT.—Ontario’s auditor general is investigating provincial government loans to MaRS, but says the probe was planned before the $317 million bailout erupted into an election issue last week.

A letter from auditor general Bonnie Lysyk to New Democrat MPP Gilles Bisson — who asked for a probe last week fearing an abuse of tax dollars — reveals an examination has been in the works.

“As it happens, we are currently conducting an audit of Infrastructure Ontario’s loans program and the scope of that audit includes the loan made to facilitate completion of the MaRS Phase 2 building, the subject of your concerns,” Lysyk wrote in a letter dated Tuesday.

“The results of our audit will be published in our annual report this December,” added Lysyk.

“You have raised a number of questions that we will consider in drafting the chapter covering this audit.”

The brand new building, also the subject of concerns from the Progressive Conservatives, is on the southeast corner of College St. and University Ave., across from Queen’s Park.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath applauded the auditor general’s probe Thursday during a campaign stop in Welland.

“I’m glad the auditor general is doing an investigation. It’s good she’s doing that,” Horwath told reporters at Giant FM, a classic rock radio station, where she promised to extend the Ontario ombudsman’s powers to include hospitals, long-term care and the troubled ORNGE air ambulance service along with closing a loophole allowing “partisan” government ads online within 30 days the election.

MaRS, which stands for medical and related sciences, is a registered charity set up as an innovation and research hub. The organization was in danger of missing payments on a $234 million loan made by the province in 2011 to finance the new building, with the money to be paid back with rental income from tenants.

But finding tenants has been difficult and the building has a 69 per cent vacancy rate, with internal government documents stating MaRS was a risk of “default, foreclosure and fiscal writedowns” over the building’s poor finances.

Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne’s campaign has said no deal to buy the building has been finalized. The matter was to be discussed on May 13 at a Treasury Board meeting that was delayed by the election call that has voters heading to the polls next week.

Wynne downplayed the issue at a campaign stop in Mississauga.

“The auditor general, in the regular course of preparing her report, was already looking at some of the Infrastructure Ontario issues,” she said.

Wynne’s campaign issued a statement accusing Horwath, who is third place in the polls, of attempting to “revive her struggling campaign by deceiving reporters” about a process in which the auditor general conducts value-for-money audits of a wide range of government programs.

Bisson said last week the Liberal plan was tantamount to “secret payments on the eve of an election” and comparable to former premier Dalton McGuinty’s decision to scrap gas-fired power plants before the 2011 election that reduced his Liberals to a minority.

“This kind of abuse of tax dollars during an election is precisely what we saw from Dalton McGuinty, and it’s exactly what we are seeing now from Kathleen Wynne,” he added.

“The same Liberal government pegged the relocation of the gas plants at $40 million before the auditor general revealed the true cost was $1.1 billion.”

In a news release Thursday the NDP said the bailout makes little sense because the government’s spring budget — which Horwath and Conservative Leader Tim Hudak refused to support, plunging Ontario into an election — pledged to eliminate one million square feet of office space.

Wynne Should “Come Clean”….Before the Election!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment
News / Ontario Election 2014

Hudak, Horwath demand release of gas plant documents before election

Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne must step in to make sure documents sought by police investigating the gas plants scandal are made public immediately for voters to see, opposition parties demanded Friday.

Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne’s campaign says it's up to legislative staff, not politicians or political staff, to release documents requested by provincial police related to the deleted emails probe.

STEVE RUSSELL / TORONTO STAR Order this photo

Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne’s campaign says it’s up to legislative staff, not politicians or political staff, to release documents requested by provincial police related to the deleted emails probe.

By:  Queen’s Park Bureau,  Queen’s Park Bureau Chief,  Provincial Politics, Published on Fri Jun 06 2014

Liberal Leader Kathleen Wynne must step in to make sure documents sought by police investigating the gas plants scandal are made public immediately for voters to see, opposition parties demanded Friday.

The call came after the election campaign, in its final week, was jolted by revelations the OPP anti-rackets squad is seeking more detail in its probe into deleted emails.

Police made their request Thursday to legislative staff, not the premier’s office, with a 10-day deadline — but the Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats insisted Wynne intervene given that voters are heading to the polls next Thursday.

“She has an obligation to do everything she can to make sure those documents get released,” NDP Leader Andrea Horwath told a news conference at Queen’s Park.

“I’m sure a call from Kathleen Wynne will speed up the process. We shouldn’t have to wait until after June 12.”

Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak agreed the public needs time to “digest” any information before heading to the polls.

“It is quite extraordinary that the elite anti-rackets squad from the OPP has to investigate the premier’s office in the first place,” Hudak told reporters following a breakfast speech to the Mississauga Board of Trade.

Hudak said because details on the gas plants scandal still remain secret he would call for a judicial inquiry into all aspects of the billion dollar spending scandals within the first 100 days of his government if the Tories are successful on June 12.

But until that happens, Hudak called for the same additional documents the OPP has asked for to be released publicly “because it’s the public whose trust has been betrayed by Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne on the gas plants scandal.”

“Just a few days ago I stood in a room with Kathleen Wynne for our televised leaders’ debate . . . and I saw her look into the camera and say that’s she’s different, that she’s changed things, that she would reveal all documents and that she was sorry. This tells us that they weren’t revealing all documents,” he said.

“Voters aren’t going to stand for a coverup. They want answers.”

Wynne’s campaign noted the OPP request was directed to legislative staff, not politicians or political staff. As such the matter is in the hands of legislative assembly administrators, they maintain.

It’s not clear whether any release of the information in question would interfere with the police investigation.

Wynne said Friday that the Liberals have “learned” lessons from the gas plants debacle, which could cost up to $1.1 billion over the next 20 years as plants slated for Oakville and Mississauga were cancelled before the 2011 election. The plants are being relocated to Sarnia and Napanee.

In her first public comments since it emerged the OPP interviewed McGuinty — but are not investigating him — Wynne said she introduced safeguards after taking over from him on Feb. 11, 2013.

“I’ve made sure that we changed the rules, that we actually put in place structures and laws, quite frankly,” she told CityTV’s Breakfast Television.

“The government didn’t continue but we had introduced legislation. We had changed the process around siting gas plants, energy infrastructure, the rules around document retention,” the Liberal leader said.

“We have learned from what happened. Doesn’t mean it should have happened. Not a good thing that it happened. But we have learned from it and made changes and those changes are what will ensure it won’t happen again.”

Her comments came after the OPP anti-rackets squad confirmed Thursday night that it met with the former premier in April.

OPP Detective Inspector Paul Beesley told the Star on Thursday night that McGuinty has been helpful to his probe.

“Dalton McGuinty has been co-operative with the OPP investigators and he is not the subject of our investigation at this time,” said Beesley, the anti-rackets squad detective in charge of the case.

On Thursday, the OPP says it “obtained a production order from the court in Ottawa for certain documents in relation to this ongoing investigation which it served on employees of the Ontario legislature in Toronto.”

Police are investigating allegations of deleted documents related to his cancellation of gas-fired power plants in Mississauga and Oakville before the 2011 election.

No charges have been laid and nothing has been proven in court.

McGuinty being interviewed is not surprising because the OPP has indicated he would be, but the revelation comes as Ontarians head to the polls next Thursday in an election that public opinion surveys suggest is too close to call.

 

Marilyn Taylor’s Ever-Growing List of Liberal Scandals!!!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

 

Marilyn Taylor     Jun 6
In that we’re quickly approaching election day, I am enclosing my most recently revised list of Liberal scandals and mishaps. Upon sharing it, please ensure to keep my name on it as I invite people to continue contacting me directly with anything they may feel should be added to the list. This is how I have maintained it over the years. Thank you.

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)
Presto (Ade Olumide is tackling this in court and has dug up a web of deceit, lies and cover-up’s that will cost us millions if not tens of millions)
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
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)
Closed down the only English agriculture college in Eastern Ontario which is the hub of the dairy industry while St. Albert Cheese received one million dollars in funding the prior day despite not requesting it
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)
Almost 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 OPP criminal investigations underway – ORNGE scandal and gas plant scandal
Pharmacy war
Illegal green taxes
Increased smart meter, electricity, hydro, tuition
Raising car insurance costs to the highest in Canada
Implemented a tire tax : my friend needed new tires for his farm tractor & eight tires at $352.00 each came to $2,816.00 for one tractor
Implemented an electronics tax, eco fee’s, 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
Millions wasted on questionable grants to multicultural groups, including 1 million to a cricket club which had asked for only 150,000.00
Trades college a self-serving Liberal creation to reward union friends
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

Children pleading for life-saving medication that other provinces provide but Ontario doesn’t (Liam, Madi, Anya)
Ontarians dying due to a lack of health care (Kim recently lost her life to brain cancer)
Ontarians being denied eye care that other Ontarians have covered under OHIP (Liam)
Forced all-day childcare at a cost of 1.5 billion against Drummond’s recommendation
Electricity rates to rise 42% over five years – based upon Liberal proven lies and broken promises, rates will rise over 42%
Prior loss of 60,000 jobs in the horse racing industry – now attempting to correct this
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
Staggering increase in the Sunshine List
Nanny-state banning of nearly everything
Outrageous property assessments
Cancelling the mandatory LHIN review and giving their CEO’s $15,000 raises
Sneaking tax-dollars into Liberals campaign team coffers
Wynne’s brother-in-law appointed as 210,000/year interim eHealth CEO
London CAS charged 1.4M for false accusation and deleting documents
David Peterson, brother-in-law of Deb Matthews, appointed Pan American Games organizing committee chair
Wynne’s wife owns 50% of a consulting company that gets government business – including Ministry of Health
Numerous CAS problems identified by Provincial Auditor General include luxury vehicles, resort vacations, etc.
Lack of oversight regarding how often babies die in unregulated child care
Huge severance packages and bonuses paid out by taxpayer dollars
Creation of the Ontario College of Trades
Solid Gold scandal
AGCO decision disallows contract brewers like left field brewery at events that are licensed with a Special Occasion Permit (SOP)
Drive Clean Program changed to cost more
21,000+ adults and children with developmental disabilities on wait lists
Proposed hospital and winery grant to to win another by-election (fails)
Minimum wage increase concerns
1.4 billion Windsor Parkway’s serious safety flaws from substandard materials
Mike Crawley awarded 456 million wind contract while Liberal Party president
2.5 billion lawsuit from cancellation of turbines of Scarborough shore which saved 2 Liberal seats and led to WTO ruling
Mishandling of the outlaw of pit bulls
10.00 tax on tax increase on license plate stickers every year for the past 3 years
Introduction of a “modest” 70% increase on the heavy truck licensing sticker fees
Lack of provincial action regarding the Law Society of Upper Canada that does not protect the public from lawyers who steal from their clients
Advising that 5.00 was more than enough to feed seniors in a nursing home every day
4 billion dollars taken from the debt retirement charge fund, thereby adding 5 more years to the payoff time
Health Minister Deb Matthews blames doctors for nursing homes drugging residents at an alarming rate
Working Families Coalition is another Liberal scam of epic proportions
Wynne approved a 317 million bailout to the MaRS office building in downtown Toronto without the public’s knowledge or approval of the Legislature “after” she dissolved government
1 million spent to set up fake twitter accounts supporting Wynne’s road tolls proposition
Terminated 2,500 nursing jobs in 2011
Vandalizing opposition signs and replacing them with Liberal signs during elections
Ornge charged with 17 offences under the Canadian Labour Code
Ontario ignored cancer lab warnings
Hid the over payment by billions of the “Debt Retirement Charge”
Supply teachers paid to “help stop Hudak”
Wynne didn’t correct the media when they reported in error that she “studied at Harvard” – she went there for a one week seminar only

Discussion About the Parasitic Wind industry!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Exposing wind industry “vampires”: Alan Jones and James Dellingpole

June 6, 2014 by 

 

263977-alan-jones

James Dellingpole was interviewed by Alan Jones on 2GB  last week about the economic, environmental and social fraud of the wind industry.

Alan has a little radio show that more than just a few Australians tune into each morning. Syndicated through over 77 Stations and with close to 2 million listeners Countrywide – AJ as he’s known – is one of those people that leads the political charge on many issues that really affect ordinary Australians and which the rest of the press ignore.

To hear the interview click on the player below. The transcript follows.

00:00
00:00

 

Transcript

Alan Jones: Well I told you yesterday, there’s been more damning evidence if any was needed, that this renewable energy rubbish, the Renewable Energy Target scheme, propping up the so-called “clean energy” sector (whatever that means) is sheer economic madness. Economic vandalism. Economic waste.

There’s now an economic analysis of the scheme, commissioned by the Mineral Council of Australia, but it is an independent analysis, suggests that there will be job losses as economic activity slows in the face of ever increasing power costs, caused by these ridiculous Renewable Energy Targets. Now you’ve heard me on about this for years and years. The economic analysis argues that the scheme’s opportunity cost, that is, money that could have been invested elsewhere will be more than $36 billion in six years time. That subsidies to the scheme could reach between $19 and $21 billion – your money in six years time. It finds that solar panels and wind farm subsidies will cost you, the electricity consumer, nearly $22,000,000,000 by 2020, six years time.

The Renewable Energy Target scheme of Rudd and Gillard is another ‘Building the education revolution’, another ‘Pink batts’, another ‘Broadband’, another harebrained idea of the utterly discredited Rudd and Gillard regimes, and it is now, as we warned, reeking its havoc.

Tony Abbott has an expert panel reviewing the scheme. That is compromised because the Federal Energy Minister, this bloke Macfarlane, is in bed with the wind industry. He dines with them, and that day is not far away when I will start naming some of those people and the occasions on which Mr McFarlane has been both their guest and their host. Talk about ICACs! Quite frankly, this whole renewable energy nonsense should be abandoned now.

The former Queensland Labour Treasurer Keith De Lacy, who is now a significant business figure, has said it is plain crazy to have schemes such as this-solar feed in tariffs and carbon tax that are driving up power bills. He said the Australian public keep complaining about the increases in the cost of living and this is become even more so. One of the biggest increases he said, is the price of electricity. He said it is the most fundamental of services to the Australian public. Now the most brain-dead aspect to all of this, and you’ve heard me say this a million times before, it that this wind power and solar power can only survive with massive taxpayer subsidies. And of course it is seeking to demonise coal fired power which has been the source of our international competitive advantage.

It was Terry McCrann who said to me years ago on this program, that if we de-carbonised the Australian economy, we are writing for ourselves, his words “a national suicide note, albeit by slow strangulation”. And of course it’s not just the decarbonisation that is the so-called carbon tax, well it’s not a carbon tax, that’s a lie too, its carbon dioxide tax, it’s this abject persistence with the so-called Renewable energy targets. The mistaken and dishonest view is that Australia’s energy needs can be met by sources other than coal-fired power.

And that was always the source of our international strength.

Now the fact that we have to feed solar power and wind power into the national energy grid, together with the carbon dioxide tax – are the reasons people can’t afford to have the heater on at night. It is the reason why manufacturing is locating overseas. It is the reason why thousands and thousands of jobs have been lost in the manufacturing industry. 60% of the increased cost faced by business in recent times were a direct consequence of the combination of the carbon dioxide tax and the Renewable Energy target. That wouldn’t be a bad thing, and we would most probably be prepared to cop it, if the science weren’t so obviously flawed.

It’s not just Tony Abbott who has a review and privately believes, as does Joe Hockey, that these Renewable Energy Targets are rubbish. Joel Fitzgibbon, when Labour were in government, has said that the Renewable Energy Target should be dismantled. So we have got wind farms around the country, which can’t survive unless they are subsidised to the tune of about half $1 million per turbine. Billions and billions of dollars are wasted in Renewable energy certificates for wind turbine farms that are non-compliant.

Forget the destruction that they do to the environment, to public health, and all those other things we’ve discussed, now here we got proof of the pudding that subsidies for renewable energy schemes, such as rooftop solar panels and wind farms will cost you the consumer almost $22 billion by 2020.

Well James Dellingpole-well I should just say before we go to James, how can we say, rightly as a government and as a community that we are not going to follow Holden and Toyota and SPC Ardmona down the road with an open cheque-book – yet here we are tipping billions into entities – wind power, wind turbines which are only jacking up the price of energy to you and to business, putting business and people out of work and they couldn’t survive without massive taxpayer subsidies.

Well James Dellingpole, I’ve spoken to him before, an English writer – tough bloke, and fearless broadcaster and he has expressed and written his opposition to this. It wasn’t long ago that in an extraordinary article he wrote and he said, and you’ve got to say this slowly- in Britain, every wind industry job costs the taxpayer 100, 000 pounds a year in subsidies. James Dellingpole is on the line from Northamptonshire. James -good morning.

James Dellingpole: G’day Alan, good to be back on your show.

Alan Jones: Thank you, lovely to have you. How much longer can we tolerate this nonsense?

James Dellingpole: It’s going to take a very long time to turn this oil tanker around. Because there are so many people with their snouts in the trough. And in Australia as I know from the last time I visited your beautiful country, and God knows I want to come back soon, I was astonished to discover how heavily the ALP is involved in this scam. A lot of the pension funds are heavily invested in these wind turbines. I don’t know if you caught that fantastic speech a few months ago by Senator John Madigan?

Alan Jones: I did, We talked to him at the time.

James Dellingpole: Talking presumably under Parliamentary privilege, because I know from my experience – when ever you speak out against the wind industry in Australia you get very nasty threatening lawyer’s letters. Because these guys don’t like the truth and they’ve got various tame academics supporting them, they’ve got …. It is as you’ve rightly said, it’s an industry which can only survive with heavy taxpayer subsidies. And what this kind of industry does is it attracts the very worst kind of people. People who don’t want to make an honest buck. People that just want to live like vampires off the taxpayer. So this is what is going on and John Madigan in this speech pointed out one example about the Waubra wind farm in Victoria. I mean it was an absolute disgrace

And the one thing I think you can console yourself with in Australia is that you really are ahead of the game in fighting back. I don’t know whether it’s that you Aussies don’t take it like other people do, but you are really fighting back hard. And I was looking today actually at the website of the Waubra foundation – this wonderful thing by Sarah Laurie.

Alan Jones: Just for my listeners’ sake, James, James is speaking in his Northamptonshire accent there – that is W-a-u-b-r-a and we have talked about that often here. Waubra, but might’nt have come through, but that is where it is, in Victoria. But of course, Napthine is the Premier of Victoria, and these things are all is in, many of these things are in his electorate.

James Dellingpole: Yes. I was reading the extraordinary story of a guy – he wrote – various people have written letters describing their experiences with the wind industry, and one of these guys actually was conned into having wind turbines on his land and he was told there was going to be no health consequences, no noise, etc. etc. Anyway, once he had signed the deal in blood and there was no escape from it, he discovered that on the contrary, these things ruined his life. To the point where even when he was sleeping 5 km away, 5 km away from wind turbines they were  destroying his health. I’ve spoken to loads of people who have wind turbine syndrome and I can tell you it is a miserable experience. It has all sorts of terrible effects.

And we haven’t even gone to the environmental damage these things do. The number of birds and bats they chop to pieces. I call them bat-chomping eco-crucifixes – because that’s what they are. They are just kind of a symbol of the green movement but they don’t actually do anything useful for anyone other than the rent seekers who’ve got their snouts in the trough.

Alan Jones: It’s frightening isn’t it? I mean even if it were economically viable, which it isn’t, its unpredictable, it’s inefficient, it’s intermittent, you can’t rely on it …I mean it has government protection like no other in a day and age where we are saying we are winding all of this protection stuff back so you’ve now got a large scale wind turbine developer can make nearly half $1 million in taxpayer subsidies, and they call them renewable energy certificates.

James Dellingpole: Yes. The point I think that some people don’t understand. You get some idiot, some naive idiot saying “we are just harvesting nature’s free bounty”, “wind is free”, wind energy is free”. No it is not free and there is a very simple reason for that which you can tell by the fact that wind does not blow all the time. Wind blows when it feels like it. Wind doesn’t blow when you want to take a hot shower. It doesn’t blow when you want to use your air conditioning. It blows when it wants to. So in other words the energy that the wind industry produces is essentially worthless because you can’t have a situation where the supplier decides when to supply you. I mean what kind? … How does that work in a free market?

Alan Jones: When do you think people are going to wake up to the fact that this has destroyed our once comparative manufacturing advantage because we had cheap energy and cheap electricity it has been destroyed now. We can’t compete internationally because of energy costs.

James Dellingpole: Well part of the problem of course is that apart from all these rent seeking politicos and corporations which are involved in these dodgy deals, is that also you’ve got organisations like Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, you’ve got all these organisations are pumping out eco-propaganda saying that renewable energy is the only answer. These organisations are multi-nationals ….

Alan Jones: But James,that shouldn’t matter – if you’ve got a government that listens and understands what the issues our-we’ve got a federal energy Minister in bed with these people.

James Dellingpole: Yes. Well I mean at least Tony Abbott is beginning to turn the tide.

Alan Jones: Yes he knows – And so does Hockey, Hockey knows too. But you’ve got to do something about it.

James Dellingpole: Yes, when I was last there, somebody called Julia Gillard was in charge and would you prefer her back?

Alan Jones: Don’t start me there, thank you very much. But the people listening to you our funding all of this dramatically.

James Dellingpole: Yes.

Alan Jones: Maurice Newman, Maurice Newman is a man I’m sure you know him.

James Dellingpole: I love Maurice Newman – he is a hero.

Alan Jones: He is a very respected Australian businessman, and he called wind farms, quote, “an obscene wealth transfer from the poor to the rich”. He called it “a crime against the people”. Now the people listening to you James this morning are all battlers out there in Struggle Street. They’re having money ripped out of their pockets so some Thai company, or Chinese wind turbine company is going to make a big, big quid.

James Dellingpole: Yes, I know. It is an absolute obscenity. And the depressing thing is that across the world these dishonest political leaders – you know like President Obama. President Obama has built the second term of his administration on creating “green jobs”. Well you’ve seen what’s happened to America. You have the example, for example of Solyndra, this company run by his friends into which he poured $500 million dollars-half a $1 billion of taxpayer’s money down the drain. And there has been research from all over the world. The Spanish economy has pretty much been destroyed by renewable energy. In fact it was a Spanish economist who came up with the shocking statistic that for every green job created by government so called “investment”, 2.2 jobs were killed in the real economy. And in Britain they did a survey and it was even higher – 3.7 jobs killed for every “green job” created.

Alan Jones: And Germany has had a gut full of it.

James Dellingpole: Oh yes.

Alan Jones: I must say last time that you were here, you said this, and it might be a good spot to end, James, James Dellingpole said, “God I wish I could be there at the barricades with the protesters in Canberra today – if ever a cause was worth fighting for, this is the one.

James Dellingpole: Yes.

Alan Jones: It is isn’t it?

James: It is, absolutely. I mean I only wish that – no I can’t say this, I can’t say this – I wish that some Tornado would come along and blow them all down. I’m not going to advocate terrorism but sometimes it is quite tempting.

Alan Jones: Lovely to talk to you. We’ll keep in touch. Okay, there we are, so there we are. Now there is a review of this. Tony Abbott does understand that he has and Achilles’ heel here in that the Federal Energy Minister in Macfarlane is in bed with these people. How this review is objective – I don’t know. But why do you need review? There is any amount of evidence out there – the whole thing needs to be scrapped. If people can make it pay without taxpayer’s money-away you go. But not one cent of our money should be spent. Another Rudd and Gillard failure that has to be dismantled.

Liberals Attack Hudak, Out of Fear…..of Losing!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Eric Jelinski M. Eng. P. Eng. — June 5, 2014

We’d have to admit this is a most boring campaign given that we have made up our minds long ago including the sit on the fence types who don’t vote. Therefore our curiosity wanders and we find interest in what is not being said. The liberals appear to think the world will end if the PC’s win. But in truth, the world will not end. Yes, for the liberals, their world will end. For everybody who votes PC, this will be a new beginning. We already know what all the candidates especially Wynne is talking about using her seemingly bottomless well of money to pay for those boring adverts about how their world will end.

We already have a taste of what Wynne doesn’t talk about. She doesn’t say anything about how renewable energy will create and sustain jobs and the economy. Wynne is admitting that the Green Energy Act is a technical and public relations disaster. The thousands of wind turbines and so little sporadic energy, that gas plants had to be built for real energy. Yet, gas plants were never part of the GEA in the beginning. They were dreaming and continue to dream in Technicolor about wind turbines. They have not answered to my e-mail below from 2 months ago.

More-over there are the health and other issues her government fails to answer, including the latest peer reviewed article about the issues,
http://www.cureus.com/articles/2457-systematic-review-2013-association-between-wind-turbines-and-human-distress#.U42qS2fji00 The day is fast approaching when this topic can no longer be avoided and the medical practitioners, College of Physicians, OMA, ONA, Ministry of Health and Environment, the Premier, and perhaps even their Federal counterparts will all need to talk about this, as this is the most lumpy part of the liberal platform.

Having decreed that we have enough electricity due to the failed economy, they continue to fail the economy by giving preferred friends contracts for the high priced wind energy and giving their friends a 15% return on investment of the wind farms on a colossal scale. While Mayor Ford campaigned on cutting the gravy train, it seems anything goes under the liberals.

The hidden agenda in the MaRS caper is to increase the size of government by adding more assistants to the assistants… as if we need a more bloated government. This election is partly about opportunity to build empires…Wynne’s empire.

Last, but not least of all the not talked about are the tax increases Wynne would impose. You hopefully have not forgotten the “revenue tools” she has talked about months ago, but is now silent on perhaps to slyly screw us with her revenue tools to pay for her promises. Of course we see another connection not talked about and that is all of the public service will get pay raises to cover the tax increases. Does that sound possible? Does that sound fair and right for the greater good.

The province is basically divided between those who work for the government and get the benefit of about 2x the paycheque plus health and dental plans vs those in the private sector who employ the vast majority of the Ontario people who work at minimum or near minimum wage who have to suffer from the taxes and high hydro rates.

And the last thing not talked about is how the bullies become bullies when they are about to lose their assumed entitlement. After 10 years of a centrist partisan monastery, it is time for a change for the greater good where all of Ontario can have input to government policy.

I hope this will get talked about perhaps at the next debate.

 

wynne1.jpg.size.xxlarge.letterbox

The Corruption and Misdeeds of the Liberals, Never End…

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

OPP serves court order at Queen’s Park, McGuinty interviewed by detectives

Published on: June 5, 2014Last Updated: June 5, 2014 9:25 PM EDT
Former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty has been interviewed by detectives about the gas plant scandal.
Former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty has been interviewed by detectives about the gas plant scandal.

The OPP anti-rackets investigation into an alleged coverup in Dalton McGuinty’s office intensified Thursday with detectives serving a court order to staff at Queen’s Park for key records, and confirming they have interviewed the former premier about the gas plants scandal.

The information to obtain the court’s production order was drafted after a handful of police interviews, including one with McGuinty in April.

The judge-issued order requires staff to hand over various records, including visitor logs for the times police believe an off-the-books computer tech accessed hard drives in the premier’s office, four days before Kathleen Wynne was sworn in.

Queen’s Park staff have 10 days to hand the records over to police. The information to obtain will not be made public until Det. Andre Duval files his returns to justice — a form that lists all items seized by police. While the contents of the ITO will therefore not be revealed until after the election, the latest police search for evidence comes in the final stretch of the campaign.

The anti-rackets unit, known for its detailed searches in high-profile cases, made a point of saying they are anything but political, and will go whenever and wherever the evidence takes them.

“The timing of the production order comes in the regular course of the investigation and should be viewed exclusively in that light,” said OPP Sgt. Pierre Chamberland, who confirmed the latest events in the investigation.

Detectives are trying to see who, if anyone, ordered the destruction of emails in an alleged coverup to hide the true costs of cancelling gas plants in Oakville and Mississauga — a tab now pegged at $1.1 billion in taxpayers’ money.

Police allege that David Livingston, McGuinty’s last chief of staff, enlisted Peter Faist to work on the hard drives in the premier’s office, using a secretary’s super-password that was specifically created to grant full access to any computer and was designed to hide any electronic tracks.

Faist is the tech-savvy partner of Livingston’s former deputy chief, Laura Miller, who has since gone on to work for the B.C. Liberal Party.

Months before police say Faist accessed staff computers, Livingston was asking around about storage protocols at the premier’s office, and asked cabinet secretary Peter Wallace how existing email accounts of employees could be deleted.

“I advised (Livingston) at that point in time that if he was interested in deleting records associated with the public service, this would be futile because we retained our records,” Wallace told detectives.

On Jan. 25, 2013, Livingston went to see then-corporate chief information officer David Nicholl about getting an administrative password “to clean hard drives during the transition period to the new Wynne government,” according to a search warrant application filed in February.

Livingston is the only named suspect in the case so far. Anti-rackets detectives are investigating him for an alleged breach of trust while in public office, specifically when they say he gave the “special global” password for unfettered access to computers in Ontario’s highest office.

None of the allegations has been proven or tested in court, and Livingston has not been charged with a crime.

In a statement, his lawyer has said his client “did nothing wrong and certainly did not break the law as alleged.”

Lawyer Brian Gover said Livingston “was consistently open about his actions in the premier’s office and he always believed that those actions were proper and in accordance with normal practices.”

Thursday’s production order marks another key phase in the probe into the final days of McGuinty’s office.

The last days were anything but business as usual. It was as if the premier’s office was transferring power to a rival party, not its own. Two staffers reported to police that they witnessed the non-government employee access their computers.

In late March, and a day after the court filings were made public, the Ontario Liberal Party told Faist his computer services were no longer required.

gdimmock@ottawacitizen.com

DIRECT Health Effects Caused by Wind Turbines!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind turbines fall over in strong winds!!

Collapse in strong winds is one of the more amusing modes of failure for the notorious wind turbine.  Other forms such as blade throw are also hazardous.  You need to be 3000 feet away to be safe.  Yet noise, and shadow flicker require them to be kept even further away than that from habitations.  Many are being injured and some are dying.  The cost of wind power is higher than we thought.

By Miriam Raftery
April 4, 2012 (San Diego’s East County) – Today marks the “International Protest Day Against Wind Power” with 765 websites participating.
A dark side of the wind industry that many media outlets have failed to report on is the thousands of documented cases of serious accidents. These include numerous documented cases of turbines falling over, blades flying off, injuries to workers and the public, and at least 99 reported fatality accidents.
Of the deaths, 67 were wind industry and direct supporters workers or small turbine operators and 32 were public fatalities.Wind turbine fire

How many tragedies have occurred worldwide is a well-kept secret within the wind industry. In the United Kingdom alone, however, Renewables UK, an industry trade association, has admitted to 1,500 wind turbine accidents/incidents in the UK alone during the past five years, the London Telegraph reportedhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8948363/1500-accidents-and-incidents-on-UK-wind-farms.html. Those included 300 injuries and four deaths—in just one small part of the world.
A partial database of accidents , injuries and deaths through December 2011 has been compiled at the Caithness Wind Farm Information Forum:http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/page4.htm
According to the Caithness database, which estimates it represents only 9% of actual accidents (based on the RenewablesUK figures), an average of 128 accidents per year have occurred from 2007-2011, up from just 6 a year back in 1992-1996 due to the growing number of wind turbine installations.
Among the most grisly tragedies was that of John Donnelly, a worker killed in Oregon in 1989 when a lanyard that as supposed to prevent falls for turbine workers became entangled, dragging him into the spinning machinery.  According to Paul Gipe, an advocate of wind power who authored an article on fatalities, the medical examiner described Donnelly’s demise as death by “multiple amputations”, witnessed by a horrified coworker.
Another Oregon worker, Chadd Mitchell,  young father of two, was killed when a wind turbine tower he was in collapsed to the ground in Sherman County after the turbine’s rotor went into “overspeed,” the Oregonian reported on February 6, 2010. Siemens Power was fined for safety violations, and the family filed a lawsuit.
Other deaths have included electrocutions, falls, crush injuries, construction accidents, and a Minnesota man who was nearly cut in half by a chunk of ice knocked off a turbine tower in 1994. Three suicides have also been linked to turbines, including a worker who hanged himself, a parachutist, and a farmer who killed himself after neighbors protested a turbine he put on his property.
Caithness also has documented 221 separate incidences of blade failure, with pieces of blades documented to have flown over 1,300 meters—or 4,266 feet (4/5 of a mile). Blade pieces have gone through roofs and walls of nearby buildings.
At least 121 structural failures have been recorded too, including entire wind turbines that have crashed to the ground. The website www.windaction.org documents many of these. Turbines have crashed to the ground in school yards, near homes, roads and walking paths where only by sheer luck was no one underneath when the multi-ton structures collapsed. In the Palm Springs area, a turbine spinning out of control forced closure of a major highway. There are also concerns about many turbines still standing –where failures such as cracked foundations and sinkage have been observed.
Wind turbine fire, Australia, WindWatchAround 168 wind turbine fires have been documented. Some sparked brush fires and left some fire departments helpless to watch as oil in turbine components burned hundreds of feet in the air—out of reach of hoses—whirling burning debris across the landscape.
There are also many instances of ice throws hurling chunks of ice off blades—94 times in 2005 alone. Another 93 transport accidents involving turbines have been reported, including one turbine section that rammed through a house and another that knocked a utility pole through a restaurant.
Disturbingly, EnergyBiz Magazine reported in its March/April 2011 edition that “More troubling for wind fleet owners and operators is that many turbines are coming off warranty. The end of last year marked the first time in U.S. history that more wind turbines were operating out of warranty than were covered, according to Wind Systems magazine, while many more are approaching the end of their warranties. Hidden costs of maintenance have climbed sharply, though some promising technologies may help reduce those costs, Energy Biz noted.
Still the issues raise troubling questions: who will be responsible for catastrophic failures when warranties have run out? Are local boards making decisions regarding turbine placement sufficiently educated on the risks?  Farm surrounded-IllinoisHow far away from a wind turbine is a safe setback distance? Locally, some proposed industrial wind projects would place turbines within a half mile of homes, on up to three sides of the dwellings, in Ocotillo. In McCain Valley, Iberdrola’s Tule Wind proposes setbacks from roads of only 1.1 times the height of the turbine – or around 455 feet maximum.
In Kansas, Rose Bacon, a member of the Governor’s Energy Task Force, became so concerned about lack of teeth in regulations and vulnerability of inexperienced local officials in small towns facing proposals from international wind companies that she likened the scenario to the “wildcatter days in the oil business,” the McPherson Sentinel reported in 2005.
Below are some specific examples of serious incidents  documented through the above websites, where many more incidents can also be found.
A wind turbine crashed to the ground at a wind farm near The Dalles, Oregon in August 2007, killing one worker and injuring another, Associated Press reported.
  • A blade from a wind turbine at Lister Hospital in the United Kingdom flew off and hit a car just one month after becoming fully operational in September 2011, the Comet reported.
  • California Highway Patrol shut down Highway 58 for several hours to protect motorists from a runaway wind turbine in the Tehachapi area.  “The runaway wind turbine, when it deteriorates or explodes, can send scrap metal and steel up to a mile away,” CHP Officer Ed Smith said, the Tehachapi News reported.
  • A wind turbine plunged nearly 200 feet to the ground near I-10 in North Palm Springs after going into “overspeed”,  KPSP news reported on May 1, 2009.
  • An Iberdrola wind turbine caught fire on May 14, 2009 at Locust Ridge wind farm in Pennsylvania; the fire was blamed on a gear box problem.
  • A 187-ton wind turbine crashed to the ground at the Fenner wind farm in  New York after breaking off at its base. Enel shut down the entire 20-turbine wind farm in Madison, County New York in June 2010 for at least six months, the Oneida Daily Dispatch and other newspapers reported.
  • Large chunks of seven turbine blades broke off at the Allegheny Ridge Wind Farm in Pennsylvania, with pieces flying over 500 feet, the Patriot News reported in May 2007.  Spanish wind-energy company Gamesa blamed insufficient glue for the failures.
  • In Dolfor, United Kingdom, a turbine exploded and fell to the ground near walking tracks, leading the Shropshire Star to conclude In January 2012, “Turbines should be nowhere near public footpaths.”
  • At Perkins High School in Ohio, blades on a month-old turbine broke apart while spinning, sending fiberglass pieces up to 40 yards (120 feet) away in February 2009. In December 2010 a blade again detached; fortunately school was not in session.
  • A wind turbine crashed down near Western Reserve High School in Berlin Center in April 2011 in Ohio, WKBN news reported.
  • At Fakenham High School in the United Kingdom, students witnessed a 40-foot wind turbine crash onto the school’s playing field and crush a contractor’s van in December 2009, Windaction.org reported.
  • Redriven Power recalled blades after turbines therw blades onto an Ohio high school and an organic fig farm in northern California, Eastern AgriNews reported in May 2009.
  • A General Electric turbine collapsed at an Altona, New York wind farm, the Press-Republican reported, after neighbors heard explosions and the turbine caught fire.
  • In Norway, a blade from a Suez Energy North American V-90 wind turbine was hurled about 1,600 feet, landing near a home’s back door, the Journal Pioneer reported in December 2008.
  • A turbine blade crashed through the roof of a neighbor’s home in Wallaceburg, Canada, the Chatham Daily News reported in February 2009.
  • In November 2009, the Press & Journal reported that a wind turbine collapsed at Rasssay Primary School, forcing children to be sent home after it landed in their playground.
  • A damaged transformer leaked 491 gallons of mineral oil in 2007 at the Maple Ridge Wind Farm’s substation in New York; in 2009 a transformer at the same site was destroyed by fire, the Watertown Daily News reported.
  • A turbine near a highway twice lost blades, the Huron Daily Tribune reported in December 2010.
  • Offshore wind farms in the North Sea are in danger of tumbling down, Wind Energy Update reported on March 18, 2011, noting that dissolved grout had shifted turbines within their foundations at around 600 of Europe’s 948 offshore turbines.
  • Renewables UK has warned that hundreds of offshore wind turbines could be suffering from a design that makes them sink into the sea, the Times Online reported on April 13, 2010.
  • Two men were injured while constructing a wind turbine tower in Rochester, Minnesota, the Post-Bulletin reported on January 14, 2011.
  • Proven Energy told owners of over 600 smaller turbines to shut them down due to fears of catstrophic mechanical failure, the Press and Journal reported in September 2011; the manufacturer suspended sales.
  • Five U.S. wind projects owned by Australia’s Infigen Energy have been engaged in legal actions with turbine manufacturer Gamesa over repair costs and lost production due to various warranty-related disputes, Recharge News reported in December 2011. The largest of those cases involves the Kumeyaay Wind Farm in Campo, where all 75 turbine blades had to be replaced due to storm damage at a cost of over $34.5 million.  Kumeyaay has “vigorously” contested a Gemsa claim and was pursuing warranty-related claims of $10 million against Gamesa, the story added. [Note: This project is listed by Pattern Energy as a “success” story in its application to the California Public Utility Commission for the Ocotillo Wind Express project)
  • Texas state representative Susan King had a wind turbine on her ranch that caught fire and burned two acres. She described it “throwing fire balls on my property”; KTXS found that despite pledges by Next Era Energy t o support volunteer fire departments, no funds had been provided in the past four years.
  • In Hokkaido, Japan, firefighters found hoses were too short to extinguish a fire in a 66-meter-high wind turbine, which took four hours to burn itself out.
  • Huge blades from three turbines in Huddersfield, England “were blown across a busy road and could have hurt wildlife or caused damage to property as well as endangering life,” theLondon Telegraph reported in January 2012.  Gale force winds were blamed.
  • In Western Illinois in 2008, a 6.5 ton blade sailed about 150 feet away, the Associated Press reported.
  • One month earlier, a 330 foot turbine “burst into flame in Ayrshire” during a 165-mph storm on the Scottish border and crashed to the ground near a road, the Telegraph reported.Oil stains, Campo-Andy Degroot
  • A Sheffield, Vermont wind turbine spilled 55-60 gallons of gear oil, spraying it out 200 yards; each turbine generator holds about 110 gallons of hydraulic and lubricating oils, the Burlington Free Press reported.
  • An Abilene, Texas wind turbine erupted into flames and spread to grass around the tower, KTXS News reported on August 26, 2011. The turbine was owned by NextEra Energy.
  • Iberdrola, the Spanish wind energy producer, blamed falling Suzlon Energy turbine blades on a one-tie accident, the Bloomberg News in North Dakota reported in May 18, 2011, suspending operations at its wind farm in North Rugby, North Dakota. The same model, however, suffered cracked blades starting in 2007, prompting a $100 million global retrofit.
  • Three blades came off a turbine at a residence and farm in Forked River, New Jersey, causing the state to shut down its entire onshore wind turbine program in March 25, 2011, the NJ Spotlight reported.
  • A lightning fire at a wind turbine in Peterson, Iowa in August 2010 was  the “third or fourth” turbine fire that the Peterson Fire Department had put out in a dozen years, the Sioux Cit Journal reported.
  • In White Deer Texas, News Channel 10 reported oil seeping down the sides of multiple turbines.
  • In Iga Mie Prefecture, Japan, the Asahi Shimbun reported in January 2008, “malfunctions and accidents involving wind turbines have occurred repeatedly across the country, leading to suspended services and even the scrapping of one facility…Slipshod surveys of wind, flawed designs or sheer incompetence have dealt a blow to the reputatin of wind turbines…”
  • Hundreds of motorists near Sunderland in the UK witnessed a turbine fire that caused rotor blades to break off; two more turbines by Vestas later fell over in high winds in Scotland, the JournalLive reported in 2008.
  • Clipper Windpower had to spend $300 million to fix faulty blades after cracks appeared at multiple facilities, Enviornmental Finance reported in May 2009.
  • A $6 million wind turbine caught fire at the Cathedral Rocks Wind Farm, starting blazes on the ground from falling embers the Adelaide Now newspaper covering Australia/New Zealand reported in February 2009.
  • In Florida, the Desert Valley Star reported in January 2009 that FPL/NER operates 60 wind turbines—and reportedly 40% were “malfunctioning, in disrepair, or need maintenance.”
  • Windtech International reported that a survey of 75 wind farm operators in the U.S. in 2008 found that 60% of turbines may be behind in critical maintenance due largely to a shortage of qualified turbine technicians.
While there are certainly many wind turbines that have never malfunctioned, the dangers cited above are real and have led many municipalities to adopt setback requirements from homes, roads, campgrounds, walkways, playgrounds and any inhabited buildings.
The wind industry has resisted setbacks, however. In Wind Energy Comes of Age, published in 1995, wind energy advocate Paul Gipe contends that setbacks of 500-1000 feet from residences are “more than adequate to protect public safety” and notes that in Europe, windmills have often been installed in places frequented by the public. Gipe insists that despite many accidents, the odds of being injured by a wind turbine remain less than that chance of being struck by lightning.
Setback distances vary widely. Some California communities use a multiple of size, such as three times the height of the turbine. Other areas have larger setback requirements. For instance, in Victoria Precinct, Australia, the government has adopted a 2 meter (1.24 mile) setback requirement for wind turbines to protect residents from risks of mechanical collapses.
In Brown County, Wisconsin, the Board of Health in January passed a resolution seeking emergency financial aid for residents near wind turbines who suffered serious health impacts including some families who abandoned their homes due to health concerns.
The Board called for adoption of the Wisconsin Citizens Safe Wind Siting Guidelines which would require setbacks of at least 2,640 feet from property lines, with further restrictions on shadow flicker, noise and other factors. Developers would also be required to submit a report with blade and debris throw calculations to protect public safety.

http://eastcountymagazine.org/node/9238

Germany has Realized That Wind and Solar Are Not A Viable Solution!—Shale Gas is!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

SHALE’S GLOBAL TOUR – Germany May Finally Be Ready to Frack

Berlin is preparing a new set of rules that will permit—with restrictions—the controversial hydraulic fracturing drilling technique. Fracking, as it’s more commonly called, allows drillers to profitably tap previously inaccessible reserves of oil and gas trapped in shale rock. Germany had imposed a de facto moratorium on fracking over the past two years, citing environmental concerns and pending new regulations, but it looks like Merkel’s coalition government is ready to get the shale ball rolling this summer. The FT reports:

Applications to carry out the controversial process for extracting the country’s estimated 2.3tn cubic metres shale gas reserves will be subject to an environmental impact assessment under new legislation to be discussed by the cabinet before the summer recess. […]

Details of the new regulations emerged in a letter from Sigmar Gabriel, German economy minister, to the head of the Bundestag’s budget committee. In the letter, Mr Gabriel wrote that permission to carry out fracking would be subject to approval from regional water authorities and that “further requirements for the fracking permit process are still being considered”.

Germany isn’t flush with gas by any means, but Russia’s meddling in Ukraine has made it clear to Berlin that it needs to exploit more of its domestic resources. Add to that the fact that German consumers already pay some of Europe’s highest electricity prices (as a result of the country’s ill-conceived Energiewende), and this decision makes even more sense.

Like every other country that has tried to replicate America’s success, Germany will still have to clear a number of hurdles as it races to catch up to the shale bandwagon. But fracking could help Berlin lower it’s dependence on the much browner coal, and in so doing become the green energy solution the country has been searching for.

Published on June 4, 2014 5:09 pm