TORONTO – Oakville Mayor Rob Burton told a legislative committee, Tuesday, he was very pleased that the Ontario government cancelled the planned gas plant in his town.
He also told the committee it didn’t make any sense to put a gas plant within 1,500 metres of 3,000 homes, nine schools, a hospital, a long-term care home and the Queen Elizabeth Way.
The government has said it cost $40-million to cancel the Oakville project, while an energy expert told the committee the real cost was likely 15 times that amount.
But energy minister Bob Chiarelli now admits the $40-million Oakville estimate could be wrong.
However, Burton said no matter the final price, it’s still worth it.
“We believe that the costs to cancel the proposed power plant are far less than the health safety and environmental costs it would have caused our community,” Burton said.
Burton told the committee the process of location selection is flawed.
“The problem here is a bad process, and every community in the province is at risk from this process until and unless the legislature changes it,” he warned.
“If anyone else ever faces this, we’ve at least lit a beacon for a path that could allow your community to prevail.”
Burton said the Ontario Power Authority ignored the community’s concerns about the health and environmental impacts.
Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion will be speaking at the committee on Thursday. The plant in her city was cancelled even though construction on it had already begun. The Liberals have estimated the cost of that to be $190-million.
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Personally, I see this as NYMBYism at it’s finest. The plant in Oakville was going to be 1500 meters from the nearest house. That’s one mile for you metrically challenged. As Gears pointed out, windmills are built even closer to housing. I say charge the cost to Oakville residents and the next time there is an over-demand of power from Ontarians, say during the next summer heatwave, brown-out Oakville to save the power.
I Agree with Nancy. those locations should not have been proposed. they should have thought it through better before going through with it. i live in oakville and one of the reasons is so i dont live next door to any kind of plant.
When it is the taxpayer’s dollars, politicians are totally clueless, as evidenced by the gas plant fiasco. Until they feel the pain, up to and including jail time and pension clawbacks, they will never get it.
“Burton said no matter the final price, it’s still worth it.”
This statement underlines my comment.
Why where these sites picked?
Who picked them?
Is there anyway we could make the Liberal Party pay the cancellation charges?
What health, safety, and environmental costs is Rob Burton worried about? Does he want the Ford assembly line and its jobs moved as well? Nat Gas plants are not known for polluting or having massive explosions – there are plenty of them running trouble-free in the northeastern US.
These plants have to be built somewhere, and it should be close to where they are needed. What is the monetary and environmental cost of building them in the boonies and then building transmission lines to carry the power to the city?
Some people are laughing all the way to the bank. Millions of tax payer money has been paid to some people for doing nothing. Who are these people? Name some companies that got paid. Investigate their ties with the government that approved this.
this scam reminds me of the Skydome, 407 ETR etc etc. Incompetent, corrupt people acting with no fear of consequences. Even if they are caught, a slap on the wrist will be their punishment. Our anemic justice system doesn’t have the brass to truly go after these thieves. What else is new !
@Nancy What? The plant was supposed to be 1500 metres from people’s homes….what’s the problem? They are building sets of 500 ft tall wind turbines pumping out 103 dBA of noise each around 550 metres from residential subdivisions in rural Ontario. What can’t Oakville do its share of the green energy plan? Feel free to take a wind turbine or two…or three.
Are we kind of missing the point? Why was it even going to be built there in the first place? No cost should have been incurred to build the thing in either Oakville or Mississauga. Holy Cow. Cancelling was the right thing to do, put proposing those locations was NOT!!!!