Doug Ford’s Stunning Hypocrisy

The Liberals’ disastrous energy policy, the Green Energy Act, and the lucrative subsidies given to “renewables” – especially inefficient wind energy – have cost our province dearly. Thanks to heavily-subsidized and over-priced wind power that we do not need, electricity rates have skyrocketed. People across our province are faced with the highest electricity prices in North America. This is killing our economy and crippling the hard-working people of rural Ontario. It is disgraceful that many are being forced to choose between heating and eating. Situations like the contamination of formerly pristine water in wells in Chatham Kent, for example, are completely unacceptable. Families having to abandon their homes because of wind developers is unacceptable. As Premier, I would create a new energy plan for Ontario that puts health and safety first….

Letter from Doug Ford, candidate for Ontario Premier, to North American Platform Against Windpower, March 1, 2018

MMP Monte McNaughton, who later became Ontario’s Labor Minister, also blasted the insanity of employing wind across that province.

…how are the turbines helping the environment? Since wind power is unreliable it requires additional backup power from other generation sources, such as gas-fired generation, which — you guessed it — increases air emissions. France, Belgium, Italy, and Spain have all had to reverse course on wind power. The reason — the exorbitant costs on consumers with no benefit.

Special to Financial Post, January 27, 2015

When Ford took control of the government, he cancelled more than 750 renewable energy projects, boasting to CBC News:

I’m proud that we actually saved the taxpayers $790 million when we cancelled those terrible, terrible, terrible wind turbines that really, for the last 15 years, have destroyed our energy file… if we had the chance to get rid of all the windmills, we would.

Premier Doug Ford, CBC News, November 21, 2019

Fast forward to 2024, and Ford has done a complete about-face on his unequivocal stance against industrial wind turbines. Ontario has laid out plans to procure an additional 5,000 megawatts of renewable energy by 2034, up from its current 4900 megawatts. Industry officials say they expect wind to account for the bulk of it, according to CBC News. “The move makes for one of the most dramatic policy shifts from a government that has had its fair share of U-turns,” they report.¹

The announcement has stunned communities across the province, including no doubt the 155 municipalities that have passed resolutions saying they are “unwilling hosts” for wind farms.

Sherri Lange, CEO of North American Platform Against Wind Power, who was part of successfully leading the charge to end the scourge of industrial wind in the province, is disgusted with Ford’s new contradictory position.

It is most disappointing to hear Ford literally ignoring facts and his own passionate espousal that wind is a “scam.” I put the Etherington book in his hands. I placed him with a thick binder of devastating stories of impacted people. Tens of thousands of complaints.

Letter to Sun Media copied to Wind Concerns, August 19, 2024

Indeed, Wind Concerns has been following the devastating impacts of industrial wind to Ontario communities and economy, including the harm to water tables.² We followed up on the thousands of reports of Ontario residents who experienced devastating health effects from industrial wind turbines, to the point of being driven from their homes (see Ontarian’s Nightmare Continues).

Jane Wilson, president of Wind Concerns Ontario, says the upside of Ford’s flip-flop is the government’s commitment not to impose projects on unwilling communities.³ That has been not only tremendously divisive to Ontarians but citizens around the globe who have woken up one day to discover that their idyllic countrysides were suddenly zoned to become industrial energy projects. With studies showing wind turbines can be seen over 50km away,⁴ the imposition has been heartbreaking for communities. Moreover, the documented health impacts that are now recognized in European courts show that industrial wind is anything but benign.

However, Keith Brooks of Environmental Defence, an advocacy group promoting wind and solar, says evidence from around the world shows that wind power is safe. Their website states that their “goal is to protect Canadians and our environment.”

I think it’s a problem that some people are trying to stoke those fears again [in Ontario] or rekindle that opposition. These projects are good and communities should embrace them.

August 19, 2024, cbc.ca

Brook’s claim, however, is a blatant contradiction of the most recent court cases and studies showing the devastating impacts of wind turbines on the environment and people and animals alike. Whether it is wiping out bat and insect populations, driving earthworms away from soil, spreading toxins in the air, or causing birth defects in animals and devasting health consequences in humans, industrial wind is a failed experiment. Says Lange in a response to Wind Concerns over Brook’s claim:

Mr. Keith Brooks very obviously is not privy to the anguish of people who have vacated homes, toxic homes, lost beloved husbanded animals, pets, destroyed or dead or euthanized; we are talking tens of thousands of serious health and related welfare issues in Ontario alone. These have been reported, to no avail. It’s a veritable sink hole of cruelty and oblivion, trivializing the harm, and hiding the effects. We will never know the full impact on wildlife, our soil and water. Industrial wind is a chimera, and an evil one at that. It does not produce meaningful power, and always needs 100% back up from gas, nuclear, or hydro electric sources. Often it is a parasite, drawing power from the working horse grid.

Dr. Ursula Bellut-Staeck, PhD, warned earlier this year that the generation of infrasound from increasingly larger wind turbines represents “a huge problem for all forms of organisms” and constitutes “a huge threat to the entire biodiversity.”⁵ Infrasound is defined as a sound wave with a frequency of less than 20 hertz (Hz) generated when the blades pass the base of a turbine. The lower the frequency of the sound, the greater its wavelength and the harder it is to shield from it. Infrasound can penetrate walls, people, and animals.

With ever larger wind turbines, the frequencies are getting lower and lower. This makes infrasound more problematic and dangerous.

Epoch Times, March 23, 2024; cf. Infrasound: ‘A Huge Threat to the Entire Biodiversity’, says Doctor

Lange notes that Ontario was headed toward expanding nuclear before this sudden turnabout. “To toss that good work out like ‘”‘another promise to break,’ is shameful. Ontario does not need more useless expensive non-performing wind turbines, nor solar factories.”

1. August 19, 2024, cbc.ca[↩]
2. cf. Big Wind’s Assault on Our Water[↩]
3. August 19, 2024, cbc.ca[↩]
4. “The facilities were found to be visible to the unaided eye at >58 km (36 mi) under optimal viewing conditions, with turbine blade movement often visible at 39 km (24 mi).” from “Wind Turbine Visibility and Visual Impact Threshold Distances in Western Landscapes ”, Sullivan et. al); see also “Offshore Wind Turbine Visibility and Visual Impact Threshold Distances”, researchgate.net[↩]
5. cf. Infrasound: ‘A Huge Threat to the Entire Biodiversity’, says Doctor[↩]