Dear Editor,
During Owen Sound’s March 25 Council meeting, Councillor Jon Farmer asked why staff were recommending a sudden vote of support for TC Energy’s pumped storage project in Meaford, which had been the subject of stormy debate for at least four years. “I don’t understand the rush,” he said.
It is all too clear why the company was putting pressure on Council for an endorsement then and there. To the company’s shock, four Georgian Bay municipalities within four months had passed resolutions opposing the project — some of them “vehemently” – from the Township of the Archipelago and its neighbouring town of Parry Sound to the Township of Georgian Bay, including Port Severn, and Meaford’s other neighbour, the Town of the Blue Mountains, which includes Thornbury. They all voted to oppose the project for environmental reasons but also because they consider it a “very bad financial deal for Ontario”.
The Independent Electricity System operator thinks it is a bad deal, too. It has twice reviewed the project and twice turned it down, concluding that it offers no net economic benefits to electricity ratepayers.
Those municipal resolutions appear to have caught TC Energy off guard and embarrassed it in front of the Ontario government, from whom the company needs approval and a long-term electricity contract to cover the plant’s cost, now projected to be $7 billion.
TC Energy needed a public relations win – and fast. So it turned to Owen Sound, which it had been courting with promises of jobs and other benefits. Council staff obliged with a report cobbled together in such haste that it appeared to have been lifted straight from the company’s website with no external studies or contrary points of view – an astounding lack of due diligence.
Thanks to a flood of emails and supporters from Meaford-based Save Georgian Bay turning up in person, some of the environmental problems were actually aired in public. As a result, and probably also because company representatives were unable to answer many of the Owen Sound councillors’ questions, the hoped-for resolution of full support was watered down to offer only “conditional” support.
Undeterred, TC Energy promptly posted a statement on “X” (formerly Twitter) trumpeting its endorsement from “the largest community in Grey County”, as though it were full and unconditional support.
That phrase offers a clue to the company’s urgency; the councils that had opposed the project were mainly small cottage-country municipalities concerned about the waters of Georgian Bay and their leisure, tourism and fishing industries. What TC Energy’s statement didn’t mention is that the combined summertime population of those communities — the foundation of their vibrant economies — is five times the size of Owen Sound, which as its Mayor Ian Boddy noted, is losing population.
TC Energy appears to be worried. The company has launched a PR blitz hoping to persuade those four councils to reverse their positions as well as deterring other Georgian Bay municipalities from passing similar votes.
But TC Energy’s promise of a bonanza of jobs and economic benefits is misleading. It speaks of 1,000 unionized jobs but they will be short-term construction jobs with work for a series of different trades spread over four years. In the end, the company admits the project will provide only 32 full-time jobs — a curious increase from its original estimate of 12 full-time jobs at a time of ever increasing automation and streamlining of work flows. The spending of $7 billion seems an extraordinary sum for creation of even 32 full-time positions — not all of which will be local.
What a shame that Owen Sound’s council rushed to capitulate to a corporate PR strategy that has left many serious questions unanswered – questions that could affect all of Georgian Bay and the region’s population for generations.
Sincerely,
Clair Balfour, Meaford
