Dear Editor,
While it might not be immediately apparent to your readers, I try to proofread my submissions for possible publication to the Meaford Independent to make sure they’re logical. And make sense.
Unlike a number of recent published letters from Save Georgian Bay and their supporters.
I’m not sure what they thought they were saying, but this is what the rest of us heard.
“I received written notice in the mail from TCE that a temporary drilling rig would arrive to conduct environmental work offshore from the Range. Imagine my shock and dismay when days later it appeared where I had been advised it would appear. And right when I was told it would appear.”
“We use misinformation to try to discredit TCE’s pumped storage proposal in Meaford. They’re scary stories we make up. Imagine my shock and dismay when I learned the CEO of TC Energy thinks that places where people don’t act like we do represent “better investment opportunities” for TCE! Shouldn’t a patriotic Canadian company stay and fight to overcome our imaginary victimhood here instead?”
“I want transparency from TCE on their work! I want them to share their findings, not hide them! Imagine my shock and dismay, when in response to my question, TCE’s representative told me we should get the results that I insisted I wanted to know about when the Provincial Government’s ready to release them!”
“Despite being dead wrong about it, I insist on publicly pretending that the Ontario Government hasn’t told the IESO to re-do its evaluation of the TCE proposal properly. Twice now. And that this time the IESO was told to stop ignoring the billions and billions of dollars in economic and environmental benefits that Ontario taxpayers will receive from this important project. Imagine my shock and dismay that the Company continues to push forward – with government backing – while the IESO re-does its past biased anti-green-energy work. As the IESO was instructed to do. By the Minister of Energy for Ontario.”
“I decided completely on my own that the karst geological formation terrain of Cape Rich may not be suitable for an energy storage facility. Imagine my shock and dismay that TCE is conducting the very environmental work that will address my concerns and eliminate my fears. As I was advised it would be. In advance. By TCE.”
“I write to you today with my concerns about the community public consultations TCE held with the Meaford Pumped Storage Advisory Committee on August 8, 2025. The community public consultations raised revelations that sparked concerns among some committee members and the public. Imagine my shock and dismay, that while I myself choose to insist that there isn’t meaningful community consultation by TCE, that at each of the community consultation sessions that I attended, I was provided with meaningful community consultation opportunities! By TCE. Consultations which led to me writing to you about the concerns that I only learned about – during the PSAC community consultations – with TCE! The kind I myself insist aren’t happening! And I got even MORE helpful information from TCE’s Facebook posts!” (If this one made your head spin? Join the crowd. Me too.)
“My letter, in which I complain that I was not advised by TCE in advance, (despite receiving written advice, in advance, in my own mailbox) demanded details from TCE on why and what the drilling (that I was previously advised would happen, and why) will do. My letter appears in the paper immediately above the long letter from TCE’s representative that addressed everything I am concerned about regarding their underwater study. Same day. Imagine my shock and dismay that TCE chooses to address all of my concerns – despite me not raising them – as they commence their work – that I was told would happen.”
“Imagine my shock and dismay that TCE is conducting the precise critical environmental testing that I and my pals insisted needed to be conducted before the pumped storage proposal could proceed. And why wasn’t an environmental study completed – on the environmental study – prior to the environmental study commencing – anyway?” (Then we could ask for an environmental study on the environmental study before the environmental study? And so on and so forth indefinitely?)
“Imagine my shock, dismay, and disappointment, that people insist that I could find out for myself why everything I repeat about the pumped storage proposal is untrue, if only I would exert the minimum effort required to attend a 1-hour session at TCE in Meaford. To get the answers to every single question I have got wrong for 5 long years. For both my benefit and the benefit of everyone else in Meaford. But I don’t want to go!”
Since nothing these people ever said was true, is true, or will come true, I understand their desperation.
But is some consistent logic and a little bit of honesty in their communications really too much to ask for?
Bruce Mason, Meaford
