July 25, 2018
Ontario

County wind farm now officially illegal

By John Spitters | Quinte News | July 25th, 2018 | www.quintenews.com

It’s over. The majority Progressive Conservative government has passed Bill 2, the Urgent Priorities Act, which officially halts the construction of the nine-turbine wpd White Pines wind farm in Prince Edward County, among other things.

The project was officially cancelled at 4:50 Wednesday afternoon.

Bay of Quinte riding MPP, PC Todd Smith said wpd was facing environmental charges and the project was proceeding despite breaking the previous government’s own rules.

Smith said the proposed project had already been trimmed from 29 turbines to just nine for environmental reasons, adding that should have been the Liberal government’s first clue that it should be stopped.

The Minister of Government Affairs went on to say that the people of Prince Edward County keep voting him in so he could keep up the fight against a “bad and stupid project”.

Smith had said recently that the Ontario government would only pay green energy company wpd its costs for White Pines until July 10, the date the government announced it intended to put a halt to the project.

The company continued building the wind farm after that date.

As expected, several members of the NDP, Liberals and the lone member from the Green Party spoke against and voted against Bill 2.

Green Party leader Mike Schreiner said the bill sends the signal that “Ontario is closed for business.”

Meanwhile, wpd is holding a meeting with its board of directors and is expected to announce soon how it will deal with the legislation which puts a halt to its White Pines project in the county.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2018/07/25/county-wind-farm-now-officially-illegal/