Cancel York power plant too, critics urge province

By Gail Swainson Toronto Star – October 8 2010
Up King Township way, they’re calling Oakville Liberal MPP Kevin Flynn the $1 billion man.
The way some King residents see things, it could cost Ontario taxpayers $1.2 billion to save Flynn’s seat in next year’s provincial election. The disgruntled citizens of rural King, north of Toronto, are referring to a decision announced Thursday by Premier Dalton McGuinty to scrap a proposed power plant in Oakville, a move some say could cost Ontario taxpayers as much as $1.2 billion in payouts to TransCanada Corp., the company contracted to build and operate the plant.
While welcome, the critics say, scruttling the controversial Oakville plant was a transparent attempt to save Flynn’s job. Nevertheless, they hope McGuinty will now follow through and also dump plans to build a similar gas-fired power plant in their neighbourhood, adjacent to Ontario’s “Salad Bowl,” the Holland Marsh.
“This was only done to save the political career of Mr. Flynn,” York-Simcoe Conservative MPP Julia Munro told a hastily called news conference Friday on the expansive front lawn of Holland Marsh farmer Doug Van Luyk. “He’s become the billion dollar man, the most expensive MPP in history.”
The cancellation followed a determined campaign in Oakville that included megawatt celebrities like hockey stars and U.S. environmentalist Erin Brockovich, along with old-fashioned grassroots community opposition.
What sparked the move, after years of insisting the gas-fired plant was necessary to help phase out coal-fired plants, was a recent marked drop in energy demand, the province said Thursday.
The proposal in King would place a $350 million, 393 megawatt “peaker” plant — the kind that kicks in only at times of peak energy demand — on a 25-hectare former vegetable patch next to a canal on Dufferin St., just north of Highway 9.
Van Luyk said Marsh farmers are concerned about the safety of a crucial food supply grown in the shadow of a gas-fired power plant and about the plant’s proximity to a local village and its school.
“Why do we need a (power) plant in the middle of the Holland Marsh, where we grow food?” he asked.
King Mayor Margaret Black said the Oakville decision was “encouraging” to local residents looking to get the same consideration.
“Our farmers may not have the wealth of our friends in Oakville, but they do toil this environmentally protected land to provide the food that sits on our tables,” Black said. “They deserve the same respect.”
Critics argue the plant could be moved to a spot away from the ecologically sensitive Marsh area.
But at Thursday’s announcement, Energy Minister Brad Duguid stressed that circumstances in Oakville are “completely different” from those of the York Region proposal. He has previously defended the gas-fired plant as an energy source “urgently needed” as demand rises in growing York Region communities such as Vaughan and Newmarket.
With files from Tamara Baluja