April 21, 2011
Letters, Ontario

No compromise at all

The Chronicle Journal, www.chroniclejournal.com 21 April 2011The Chronicle Journal, www.chroniclejournal.com 21 April 2011

I have lived in Thunder Bay for 49 years, working as a Christian minister, a college professor and radio broadcaster. I was a trustee on the Lakehead Board of Education for 14 years. I have observed city politics closely. No decision made by any of our city councils can even vaguely compare with the decision of our present council to allow Horizon to plunder and despoil (is rape too strong a word?) our city.

The “compromise” presented to council was no compromise at all, but rather a surrender to even more demands by Horizon: even more towers of greater height and even more acreage is to be handed over.

I speak with people all across the city and I find that not one in 10 really understands what is being foisted upon our citizens. They can’t visualize how a string of giant wind turbines (some of them more than 40 storeys high, the larger ones can be as high as 51 storeys) will deeply scar the beauty of our city’s setting. (The towers will be 50 per cent taller than the Peace Tower in Ottawa!)

If our councillors think that they have dodged a major lawsuit by caving into Horizon, they need to think again. An immensely larger lawsuit awaits them.

My congratulations to Mayor Hobbs and councillors Rydholm, Boshcoff and Ruberto who had the courage to resist the bullying tactics of Horizon and who recognized that the new agreement is really a further sell-out to Horizon. (Coun. Hebert declared a possible conflict of interest.) As for the other councillors who knuckled under to Horizon, shame on them!

(Incidentally, this is not a NIMBY issue. I live on the north side, eight miles from the Nor’Westers – yet these turbines will affect me as they will affect every single citizen of Thunder Bay.)

Hugh Robert MacDonald
Thunder Bay

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/04/21/no-compromise-at-all/