Dear Editor,
Two recent letters made this reader nostalgic.
People of my vintage will recall the joy they felt when they went to the ‘Record Store’ to buy an ‘album’ (subsequently a tape, a CD…). Because you needed the latest record from your favourite band. Badly.
But, no trip to the Record Store was complete without a close look at the discount aisle. The 50% off albums that were never good choices. They weren’t worth the money. Not one note of valuable content on most of them.
Often, you’d find something odd. A really cheap album by a band you’d never heard of. Containing songs that were never ‘hits’ in any sense of the word the way people use ‘hits’. Hits to no one but the band themselves. But since the band felt they had to put something out there to please their few fans, it would always be titled “The Greatest Hits of ___.”
Again. No hits. Certainly nothing anyone rational would ever consider labelling ‘Greatest’.
What made me wander down Memory Lane? Revisit the deep discount aisle of the record store in my mind?
Well. Save Georgian Bay just released their ‘Greatest Hits’. Available in the Letters pages of The Meaford Independent.
Letters from Pat Maloney and Mike Ashmore contained no new content. Nothing that was ever a ‘hit’ to anyone but themselves and their fellow Save Georgian Bay members. The first one hundred times they repeated them. To each other. The same tired, and far too frequently repeated, misinformation. Masquerading as warnings from serious people. SGB’s Greatest Hits album covered the same old bad SGB songs that Save Georgian Bay released in 2019 from their first and only album, “A Cause Based on Imaginary Victim-hood.”
I suggest no one buys the Greatest Hits of Save Georgian Bay anymore than they bought the original compilation from 2019. There’s nothing new or true on it.
It was surprising to see Pat Maloney acknowledge that TBM Council refuses to waste any more of that Council’s valuable time on Save Georgian Bay’s attempts to make the Pumped Storage proposal sound dangerous. Or controversial. I thought TBM Councillor Gail Ardiel nailed it:
“Coun. Gail Ardiel wondered if council would be jumping the gun by passing a resolution opposing the project for environmental reasons, before the environmental reports and assessments had even been completed.”
Well said Councillor Ardiel! Beautifully REASONED! The logic you used should be crystal clear to anyone possessing the ability to read and understand English.
Every municipality surrounding the Base refused to oppose the Project. They supported it – subject to conditions being met. When the data becomes available. Refused to oppose now, based purely on fiction and creative writing.
How long then before the Board of Directors of the Georgian Bay Association also start asking themselves why their Executive Director is wasting GBA’s reputation, money, time, and resources by demonizing a valuable green energy project? Before the work that might find out if it’s a risk or problematic to Georgian Bay has even started?
Township of the Archipelago Council has started to hear from unhappy voters and their enlightened Council colleagues that Archipelago Council fell for the SGB/GBA hoax as well. Bought into a fairy tale. Not factual evidence. (Their August 16th Council Meeting is available on line.) Will the TOA Council finally admit their error and correct the record? By reversing their far too hasty resolution to “vehemently oppose” the Meaford Pumped Storage Proposal? Unless and until something that actually calls for opposition appears on the distant horizon?
Both TBM and Archipelago have documented environmental threats on their own doorsteps. In their own backyards. They should focus on their own real threats. Perhaps utilizing the time they no longer waste on imaginary ones in Meaford. (Google “WW2 CIL plant Nobel Ontario”. That will curl your hair. Or set it on fire.)
I wonder if these Save Georgian Bay guys bother reading any letters written by people other than themselves? If they did, they’d learn that Meaford, Blue Mountains, Archipelago, Owen Sound, and Grey County Councils have plenty of genuine challenges to manage. Demanding that they all put aside actual problems to entertain and pursue SGB’s fanciful objectives cannot be justified. Those Councils shouldn’t even be asked to.
Mr. Ashmore complains that Meaford Council won’t drop the important stuff Council needs to work on to focus on his concerns. He questions the CAO and Council’s motives.
I (and I expect Meaford) appreciate the CAO and Meaford Council’s bias towards resolving real problems. As opposed to “land acknowledgements and possible referendums”.
Referendums? C’mon Mr. Ashmore. It matters if there’s somewhere safe for it all to go when the toilet flushes. Roads? Potholes fixing seems to have a lot of community support just now. And ensuring that we have enough fresh water supply in town when all the new houses get built?
Prioritize reality? Yes please! Doomed-to-fail referendums? No thank you!
CAO Kymm Buckham and Meaford Council need to proceed – as explained. By ignoring silly distractions going nowhere fast and getting down to business managing the Town of Meaford’s actual problems.
P.S. A brief (sadly, a repeat) Bulletin for all the Save Georgian Bay Members – the IESO has yet to rule on the Pumped Storage Proposal’s value to Ontario ratepayers. The Minister of Energy ordered the IESO to go back and re-do the math. Properly. Only this time they were ordered to NOT ignore the billions of dollars of social and economic benefits to Ontario and the Ratepayers that the Project will deliver over 50 years. (SGB? This has been common knowledge since July 2023. It is now September 2024? How did you guys miss this? So many times?) We’ll all know when the IESO issues a real evaluation.
Bruce Mason, Meaford
