Globe: Public deserves a debate on the energy strategy
Post
Wednesday, June 14 2006, Globe and Mail, Queen's Park - Public deserves a debate on the energy strategy, Murray Campbell
Dave Martin has been here before. As a young man a couple of decades ago, he scaled the fence at the Darlington nuclear generation station then being built and spent three days in jail for his pains.
The 51-year-old Greenpeace official was back at it again yesterday, joining six other anti-nuclear activists in chaining themselves in the foyer outside the office of Energy Minister Dwight Duncan to protest against his plans to build new reactors in Ontario. For Mr. Martin, it's like 1981 all over again.
"There is, sadly, a very real sense of déja vu," he said before the protesters were removed last night and arrested for trespassing. "This is a case of history repeating itself."
Indeed. Some 14 years after the last nuclear plant in Ontario -- at Darlington -- went on-line, Mr. Duncan announced yesterday that the province is back in that game. As part of a plan to provide enough electricity in 2025, he said billions of dollars would be spent to refurbish the existing fleet of reactors and to build at least two new units.
The policy to maintain 14,000 megawatts of nuclear power is a slight trimming of the advice offered by the Ontario Power Authority, but it represents a significant commitment to a source of electricity that many people had thought had become too disgraced to contemplate using again.
It is a brave move. It is also entirely unwarranted given the previous commitments of Mr. Duncan to consult the public before diving into this particular shoal. A year ago, he talked of proceeding "judiciously" and of "an open and public debate" before embracing nuclear.
So far, however, all we have seen is a moderate outreach in the dead of last summer by the OPA. The arm's-length government agency called for public submissions last July as it was preparing an advisory report to the government about how electricity should be generated in the future. It received 185 submissions, which is a minor miracle given the season. The OPA also heard from 30 experts and interviewed so-called stakeholders and "non-industry societal influencers" before conducting a poll with a sample of 800 respondents.
Mr. Duncan called this a "rather fulsome engagement." This prompted Keith Stewart of the environmental group WWF-Canada, to scribble out for a reporter a definition of "fulsome" as "so deliberately insincere as to be insulting." He was part of the OPA process and he believes "there was no real attempt to engage the public."
It's hard to conclude otherwise. Nothing the OPA did can be construed as the open and public debate that Mr. Duncan promised, and this is a real pity. The future of the electricity industry is one of the most profound issues facing the province. Do you think, for example, that Honda would be building auto-assembly plants in Ontario if it thought power was too expensive or and its supply too unreliable?
Ontarians can be excused for being muddled about where electricity should come from. It's a complex commodity and the potential new sources -- nuclear, coal and gas -- all have drawbacks.
They deserve a debate. Mr. Duncan promises the public will be consulted as his policy winds through the regulatory process. He says he is willing to listen to contrary arguments. But you get the feeling that the fix is in. After all, Premier Dalton McGuinty said last year that he was prepared to build new nuclear plants if the OPA recommended it and that still seems to be the case. The debate will mostly be on potential sites for the new reactors. Of course, the government does know what the public is thinking. It will be doing its own polling. And it's likely it saw a recent poll by Pollara (its preferred firm) presented by Warren Kinsella (a friend of the government).
The survey found that 34 per cent could live with a nuclear plant in their community and a further 21 per cent were neutral or only somewhat opposed. Pollara also found nearly two-thirds of respondents believe the government should keep the coal-fired plants open until new energy sources are available, even if that means breaking a promise.
Those two findings alone explain Mr. Duncan's policy, particularly the gruesome climbdown on the coal-plant shutdown. Why else would a government committed to clean air cancel the conversion to gas of the Thunder Bay coal plant?
Who needs public consultations when you've got surveys like this?
Dave Martin has been here before. As a young man a couple of decades ago, he scaled the fence at the Darlington nuclear generation station then being built and spent three days in jail for his pains.
The 51-year-old Greenpeace official was back at it again yesterday, joining six other anti-nuclear activists in chaining themselves in the foyer outside the office of Energy Minister Dwight Duncan to protest against his plans to build new reactors in Ontario. For Mr. Martin, it's like 1981 all over again.
"There is, sadly, a very real sense of déja vu," he said before the protesters were removed last night and arrested for trespassing. "This is a case of history repeating itself."
Indeed. Some 14 years after the last nuclear plant in Ontario -- at Darlington -- went on-line, Mr. Duncan announced yesterday that the province is back in that game. As part of a plan to provide enough electricity in 2025, he said billions of dollars would be spent to refurbish the existing fleet of reactors and to build at least two new units.
The policy to maintain 14,000 megawatts of nuclear power is a slight trimming of the advice offered by the Ontario Power Authority, but it represents a significant commitment to a source of electricity that many people had thought had become too disgraced to contemplate using again.
It is a brave move. It is also entirely unwarranted given the previous commitments of Mr. Duncan to consult the public before diving into this particular shoal. A year ago, he talked of proceeding "judiciously" and of "an open and public debate" before embracing nuclear.
So far, however, all we have seen is a moderate outreach in the dead of last summer by the OPA. The arm's-length government agency called for public submissions last July as it was preparing an advisory report to the government about how electricity should be generated in the future. It received 185 submissions, which is a minor miracle given the season. The OPA also heard from 30 experts and interviewed so-called stakeholders and "non-industry societal influencers" before conducting a poll with a sample of 800 respondents.
Mr. Duncan called this a "rather fulsome engagement." This prompted Keith Stewart of the environmental group WWF-Canada, to scribble out for a reporter a definition of "fulsome" as "so deliberately insincere as to be insulting." He was part of the OPA process and he believes "there was no real attempt to engage the public."
It's hard to conclude otherwise. Nothing the OPA did can be construed as the open and public debate that Mr. Duncan promised, and this is a real pity. The future of the electricity industry is one of the most profound issues facing the province. Do you think, for example, that Honda would be building auto-assembly plants in Ontario if it thought power was too expensive or and its supply too unreliable?
Ontarians can be excused for being muddled about where electricity should come from. It's a complex commodity and the potential new sources -- nuclear, coal and gas -- all have drawbacks.
They deserve a debate. Mr. Duncan promises the public will be consulted as his policy winds through the regulatory process. He says he is willing to listen to contrary arguments. But you get the feeling that the fix is in. After all, Premier Dalton McGuinty said last year that he was prepared to build new nuclear plants if the OPA recommended it and that still seems to be the case. The debate will mostly be on potential sites for the new reactors. Of course, the government does know what the public is thinking. It will be doing its own polling. And it's likely it saw a recent poll by Pollara (its preferred firm) presented by Warren Kinsella (a friend of the government).
The survey found that 34 per cent could live with a nuclear plant in their community and a further 21 per cent were neutral or only somewhat opposed. Pollara also found nearly two-thirds of respondents believe the government should keep the coal-fired plants open until new energy sources are available, even if that means breaking a promise.
Those two findings alone explain Mr. Duncan's policy, particularly the gruesome climbdown on the coal-plant shutdown. Why else would a government committed to clean air cancel the conversion to gas of the Thunder Bay coal plant?
Who needs public consultations when you've got surveys like this?
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