While world leaders in Dubai grapple to sign an agreement on fossil fuel phase-out or phase-down, Halton Hills Town Council showed local leadership last night for clean air and climate action with a decisive decision to not endorse Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) plans to build a large new gas-fired power plant in their community.
In a 9-2 decision, the Council acted in the best interests of residents and the planet rather than taking the $3.5 million in public money OPG had offered the Council to buy into its polluting plan.
Halton Hills Councillors asked tough questions about OPG’s plans, investigated costs and alternatives, and refused to be rushed into making a decision, postponing the original decision date by over a month. They have set a standard for how councils should deal with relentless pressure from the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) and fossil fuel interests trying to rush through polluting gas plants before local residents notice.
We’d particularly like to tip our hat to Councillor Jane Fogal, who led opposition to more fossil gas burning. Jane was joined by Mayor Ann Lawlor and Councillors Clark Somerville, Alex Hilson, Michael Albano, Jason Brass, Chantal Garneau, Ron Norris and Bob Inglis in rejecting OPG’s dirty plans.
This decision is a real blow to the IESO’s efforts to massively expand fossil gas burning across Ontario. Despite all of the IESO’s claims about blackouts and enticements of public money, Town Council was not persuaded that increasing greenhouse gas emissions in the midst of a climate crisis was a good idea. In fact, Halton Hills has demonstrated that it is serious about its climate commitments, a lesson our provincial government could learn from.
And perhaps OPG might now like to use that $3.5 million to help the people of Halton Hills install solar panels on their rooftops. The narrow fixation of our publicly-owned utility on burning more gas while shilling for GE-Hitachi’s unproven new nuclear technology is becoming more and more embarrassing and indefensible. It’s time for Ontario to start investing in low-cost Made-in-Ontario wind and solar energy instead.