Dear Editor,
I don’t consider myself short-tempered. But I am plenty angry right now.
Everyone in Meaford and Ontario should be delighted that we will be getting the facts about the Meaford Pumped Storage proposal. At last. No more lies. No more imaginary “concerns” with no proof.
“The funding will support critical studies, including a detailed cost estimate and various environmental assessments.”
We are going to get what is needed to allow informed and responsible decision making to take place. Lies will no longer be welcome to join the discussion.
Only people who decided for themselves years ago – with no data to prove it – that the Pumped Storage proposal would be a bad deal for Ontario, and that there would be engineering and environmental dangers – with no data to prove that either – could possibly be unhappy to hear we’re ALL going to be getting the facts.
Facts, that if they fulfill the previously agreed to conditions, will allow this critical project to move to the next steps.
I expected the local opposition to oppose finding the truth. It’s what they do.
I wasn’t surprised to see them resort to making sleazy insinuations at all. Were you? Anything to get what they want. Did it before.
So, after carefully reading the room and thoughtfully judging the current mood of their target audience with their usual flair, Save Georgian Bay concluded that what Meaford and Ontario really needed – really wanted – this week – was to listen to a rant from a belligerent and deliberately uninformed American. They chose to trot out the former Mayor of Farmington Michigan to test their newest insinuations about the Pumped Storage proposal process.
I did not need or want to hear from even one more angry American this week. Did you?
I did not need an outraged American to suggest the Energy Minister of Ontario might not be trustworthy, maybe can’t do his job, and might actually be in bed with TCE. Simply because he didn’t like the Energy Minister’s decision.
Nor did I need an outraged American to tell me that finding the facts – the truth – could be an “end run around regulators” or could be “an example of some cozy Greenbelt-style deal with corporate pals”.
If you suspect someone 1) isn’t from here, 2) has no idea how the electricity market works in Ontario, yet, 3) he still wants to tell you that you’re doing it wrong?
But you’re just too shy to ask?
Just watch for him to say in the local paper, “It makes no sense for taxpayers to pay for an energy project the government never asked for or put out for a competitive bid.”
Then you’ll know for a fact that, 1) they aren’t, 2) they don’t, and 3) they shouldn’t be.
(Factual explanations for why what I just said is true are available every week at the Information Sessions TCE holds at their office in Meaford. These Sessions have been available for years now to help those people baffled by how our electricity market – the market in Ontario, Canada – actually works.)
This week, of all the weeks in the year, I did not need to hear another American telling us Canadians are too incompetent to manage our own affairs. That we’re too stupid to know what’s good for Ontario and Canada.
And that we need to listen to the angry American in the room. Of course.
We don’t. And we shouldn’t. Doesn’t matter who the American is. Whether they’re painted orange or appear some other more natural colour. And especially not if they’re not telling the truth solely to advance their own personal interests.
Reading the room means to “understand or be sensitive to the mood or feelings of a group of people that one is addressing or engaging with.”
If the plan was to focus our attention on some new sleazy, unsubstantiated insinuations? Or just to repeat the same old tired lies and desperately hope someone listens?
I don’t think they read the room. Picked the wrong week for sure.
Bruce Mason, Meaford
