Energy, Environment and Social Inclusion: An Incendiary Critique of Ontario

Energy, Environment and Social Inclusion: An Incendiary Critique of Ontario

[This document is given to local, provincial and federal politicians, banking and energy stakeholders, grassroots etc.]

“We must all learn the spirit of absolute selflessness from Norman Bethune. With this spirit everyone can be very helpful to each other. A man’s ability may be great or small, but if he has this spirit, he is already noble-minded and pure, a man of moral integrity and above vulgar interests, a man who is of value to the people.” Mao

Paradigm Shift Environmental Alliance (PSEA)

January 3, 2009

Deeply disconcerting, tragic and inhumane, is privatization of our energy system. It is an embodiment of terrible injustice to people in our society. It is an injury to our collective social wellbeing. It is dehumanizing, disempowering, impoverishing to our society and the people within it.

The process of creating conditions for survival through dreadful times ahead of us should be unfolding in full speed: Housing, Water, Electricity, Heat and Food, locally produced and distributed so that no one in our society is left behind.

There is so much for us to do, and to create, we need a sense of agency within us. A sense of empowerment. A sense of urgency. A sense of self-esteem. A sense of inclusion, dignity and humanity. The belief that we can, and that we must, and that there is no choice.

Nuclear power plants, coal-fired plants and gas plants have to be decommissioned immediately. A new public energy system has to sprout in Ontario in harmony with its environment and its people. Energy planning has to be integrated with infrastructure, waste, water and land planning. It is a different picture of our lives we have to paint. In the picture, there should be no running loose of mindless private energy corporations, ravaging Ontario’s green belt and her watersheds!

The work has to begin.

But the work CANNOT begin WITHOUT THE PEOPLE of Ontario.

The people of Ontario have been ditched, the private energy companies and their shareholders have made our people into beggars for energy, which is produced in most environmentally destructive ways. Plague of Enron has disintegrated our public energy system, which, infested with corporate-minded salivators, will need our action to survive.

From collective re-creators and transformers of our own energy system, we have become some private energy company “customers,” and suddenly we are talking about “energy poverty.” Welfare offices together with private energy companies, are planning how to soften the hard reality of life of many left without electricity and heating in Ontario. In the race to the bottom, people have to strive to be the “most needy” in order to qualify for some energy.

Private energy companies in Ontario are allowed to get away with murder. Our seniors, our most vulnerable, are left behind in the cold in their own homes in the middle of the winters in Ontario – SHAME!!! The lawyers of those energy companies are threatening to confiscate their homes in order to make up for unpaid energy bills. Local politicians, turning the blind eye, are in agreement – “check yourself into an old-age home” is their response – too shallow for too deep a tragedy. SHAME!!!

Electricity and Heating plug is pulled on those that use least amount of energy!!!

How come??? The McGuinty government’s “light-bulb” lite motif conveyed an idea of energy efficiency. If anyone is energy efficient in our society it is our most vulnerable. Yet, they are being punished. Not only is the little bit of energy being taken away from them, their homes too, are being confiscated by the private energy companies, under the pretense of “unpaid energy bills.” And how about the health of these fragile people, in the freezing temperatures in their homes after being cut off from our energy supplies, and also under fire of being pushed out of their homes? Where are they supposed to go!? After all those decades of productive contributions, where are they supposed to go, ONTARIO!? Shame!!!

There should be an organized, multiple-source call-out for stories of all people in Ontario whose electricity or heating has been cut off due to privatization of energy, and lack of access.

The office buildings in down-town Toronto are unceasing in the voluminous amounts of energy they burn every single night, from dusk ’till dawn. This system is not about “energy efficiency!” “Energy efficiency” is a tool of discipline and blame placed on (vulnerable) individuals, meant to conceal the diversion of tremendous revenues generated by our collective energy system supposed to sustain us all, into the pockets of invisible shareholders of private energy companies and multiple middleman private power broker bureaucracies which were created in Ontario to serve them.

Who has created this abominable ugliness in our own society???

Who is going to take care of this incendiary energy situation in Ontario???

Aleck Dadsons of our ferced up enronized energy systems???

On top of welfare, food banks, charity soup kitchens, privatized housing, and corporate welfare, we will have energy welfare. And soon, we, too, will have water welfare, and sewage welfare.

There will be charity shit holes for the needy, in case their empty stomachs ever needed such a service.

We need to move away from the service economy.

Housing, Food, Energy, Water, Sewage must not be weapons for gunning our people down.

There is a continuum of privatization of energy which stretches from the utter humiliation and dehumanization of individuals – a total anathema to a society of kind and empowered people, to aborting of our collective ability to create a new energy era in Ontario – as dictated by the natural laws of environment and the mandatory laws of humanity.

Some disconcertingly inhumane processes have divided us and distanced us from each other. Our relationships have dramatically deteriorated. What is the point of life whilst our next door neighbours are hungry, unhoused, sick, left behind in the cold, in the dark? What is the point of life whilst the hungry, unhoused and those in ill health are humiliated at the hands of heavy-handed service providers in a system built on dependencies and injustice?

Why live when you can’t live with dignity? And we will have no dignity until each and every of our people are taken care of.

Energy does not have to be a crime against humanity. Energy does not have to cancel out people’s lives in any form or shape. Energy does not have to cancel out the environment in which we live. Our water, air and soil do not have to be compromised by the radioactivity and fossil-fuels of nuclear, coal and gas dinosaurs.

What is the point of being well-paid and cushioned while drinking radioactive water?

What is the point of being rich and famous while breathing the air of smog ?

What is the point of being rich and famous while marked with the ignominy by the growing number of the wretched on our streets?

We are unable to be kind people and good people when our fellow beings are bestialized by the corporate forces of total destruction, and then blamed for it, while our environment is being turned to waste.

This has to stop!

We have to develop ways to create our own housing, our own energy, our own food, our own water, our own sewage. Coming together to create these basic living conditions and humane relationships amongst all of our people leads to improved Education and Health. We have to learn how sewage can support energy and how energy can support water and land.

There is not an invisible hand which will do all this for us. We have to create it together. We must not let private energy companies and corporate salivators in our Ontario Hydro and the government burn the bones of our ancestors, those vigorous people from whom we inherited our public hydro, burn our bones and the bones of yet unborn.

Privatization of CANDU + privatization of Toronto Hydro = privatization of Ontario Hydro = privatization of the Province of Ontario = people to slavery, robber barons to power!??

There should be no selling of CANDU. It is ours and it is our responsibility to decommission – use our knowledge of nuclear for that which is worth something for the life in Ontario : stop, decommission, clean up!!! Why would India and China be wasting money on CANDU. CANDU has turned Ontario into a heap of irreversibly radioactive trash. Why would anyone want this type of avoidable destruction upon themselves?

Does it make sense to privatize hydros in Ontario, those constant money streams generated from each of our households; those money streams which we need to build the new era of energy in our province!

Privatization means more nuclear, more coal and more bestialization of our people who will lose their housing due to their energy supplies being cut in the middle of cold, cold winters in Ontario.

Some green co-ops in Ontario are ignoring environment and privatization of energy by partnering with gas (Enbridge) and tar sands corporations (Suncor). What is the point of building renewable energy when there is no basic understanding of the relationships between energy, environment and social inclusion, equality and justice? Fossil fuel corporations work hard to destroy environment and people’s access to energy!!!

All green projects in Ontario, divest from gas, coal, tarsands, uranium, and energy privatization money, NOW!!! As you do that, you will start to seek money channels which support the reversal of energy privatization and environmental destruction in Ontario. Lay down the exploitation and oppression of coal, gas, tarsands, uranium, biomass and garbage burning industries!

Cool green – should be the current standard of energy production: no smokestacks, no exhaust pipes, no burning of anything.

Money from our energy should not be streamlined to very rich people who may not even reside in Ontario – the invisible shareholders of corporate energy companies operating in Ontario– these public moneys should be streamlined into a renewable Ontario for all Ontarians!!! Suncor money, Enbridge money come from destruction of our environment, from privatization of our energy. This trend should be fiercely critiqued by all Ontarians and should be done away with immediately. This trend should not be further entrenched through our green projects!

How is it, middle class people of Ontario, that your green feed-in tariff projects are inclusive of those who are poor and cannot afford green? PUBLIC MONEYS FOR A RENEWABLE ONTARIO, not only for a specific class of people in Ontario, NOW! How about our children, renters, seniors, people in ill-health, those unemployed because fossil fuel – radioactive economy is not creating any jobs???

Time is over for such things as beating the spirit of our people to the pulp by subtracting from our collective cauldron of contributions the minimums which account for basic living conditions and which in turn account for human dignity – the glue of our inter-relationships.

In the society inspired by Tommy Douglas and Norman Bethune, we can and must do better!!! And better means, doing all we can with our hearts, brains, hands, both our public and private money to achieve optimal living conditions for all.

It is time for the revolution in the way we think and act; revolution of creativity, sharing, inclusion, compassion and actualization of our spirit for communally and locally owned housing, energy, food and water systems…

Laws against such organization, acts which privatize sources of our public money diverting it from communal purposes are illegal and illegitimate. Police, military, special forces will not prove it otherwise.

Mass-acting with our hearts, bodies, spirit of sharing and inclusivity, and unceasing vocalizations of resistance to the HANGMAN – now!!!

For more, see:

Howard Hampton. (2003). “Public Power: the fight for publicly owned electricity.” Toronto: Insomniac Press

Indeco (September 30, 2009) “Report on the proposed framework for low-income emergency financial assistance; Final report of the emergency Financial Assistance Working Group to the Ontario Energy Boards”

*! Superior Renewable Energy Cooperative, Thunder Bay, working with Suncor corporation

 http://www.srecwind.ca/Home_Page.php paragraph 1, line 6

*! Toronto Renewable Energy Co-operative working with Enbridge corporation

 http://trec.on.ca/about/sponsor.html

 http://trec.on.ca/about/Support.html

*! Ontario Clean Air Alliance accepting money from Ontario Natural Gas Association, Sithe Energies, Inc (Southdown Gas Station; Goreway Gas Station), Union Gas, Westcoast-Duke Energy, Enbridge, TransAlta Energy Corporation (gas plants, coal-fired plants, coal mines, Key player in Alberta Tar Sands).  http://www.cleanairalliance.org/about_supporters

*! Ontario Clean Air Alliance has supported private gas plants on Toronto’s waterfront

Letters to the Editor

 http://www.nowtoronto.com/letters/index.cfm?content=159179

Burning question

Thanks to Andrew Cash for his timely article on the Portlands Energy Centre (NOW, July 19-25), the giant power plant being constructed on Toronto’s waterfront. I just wish he hadn’t given the last word to Jack Gibbons of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance.

I’m grateful that Gibbons is working to shut down coal plants, but he’s wrong to say that PEC will speed this up, or that we have to choose between burning coal and gas.

Using a fraction of the $730 million it will cost just to build PEC, Toronto Hydro could save far more with conservation programs than the 550 megawatts PEC will produce.

With sickness and death from air pollution and climate change, we need to change direction now. Any new burning of fossil fuels should not be permitted unless it is clearly demonstrated first that alternatives (conservation, energy efficiencies, renewable power and energy storage) won’t work.

Dave Toderick

Toronto

Clean Air’s pro-gas plank

Thank you for the excellent article about the Portlands Energy Centre and the walkout by most of the community members from the dysfunctional Community Liaison Committee.

The one quibble I have is with Jack Gibbons, who has been the standard apologist for all natural gas generation projects for the province. Gibbons is a strong and important voice against coal, but he is stunningly wrongheaded on this point.

The current focus of the Alliance is a fight against new transmission lines to bring more electricity into the city. The organization states that instead of spending $600 million on the East Toronto Transmission Line, “we should invest in more cost-effective options to meet our electricity needs, such as energy conservation, renewable power and small-scale combined heat and power plants.”

That same argument applies in our fight against the $730 million power plant that provides even less energy for Toronto and is a more direct point source for local pollution.

Perhaps Gibbons’s stand can be explained by the fact that the Alliance counts among its sponsors the Ontario Natural Gas Association, Enbridge Gas Distribution and other natural gas promoters.

Adriana Mugnatto-Hamu

danforthgreens.ca
Toronto

A dirty future in coal

RE Dogging big coal (NOW, July 19-25). Just a couple of important points about your report on our weekly vigils outside Ontario Power Generation headquarters (NOW, July 19-25).

OPG spokesperson John Earl is wrong when he says we draped our banner over OPG’s sign. Good idea, but not true.

Paradigm Shift Environmental Alliance is also against the Portlands Energy Centre gas plant. Why not look more closely at protecting the Leslie Spit bird sanctuary across from the PEC plant?

Also, Ontarians should know that the Ontario Power Authority is recommending that OPG export 93 per cent of its coal-fired electricity to the U.S. by 2010, meaning we get all the toxins, death, illness and have to account for the greenhouse gases while the U.S. gets our power.

Ivona Vujica

Paradigm Shift Environmental Alliance
Toronto

ferc stands for Federal Energy Regulator Commission, a US energy agency which has been colonizing Ontario and other Canadian provinces, or “harmonizing” what goes on in Canada with the need of American elites – through a regulatory regime calling for energy privatization in Ontario and energy exports from Ontario. The end result, is that people of Ontario lose the ability to participate in democratic decision making, planning and creation of the new energy system according to local social and environmental requirements. Essentially, Ontario land is abused to produce energy many Ontarians are not able to access. Energy business in Ontario becomes a private property protected by security forces from Ontarians.

Aleck Dadson – “Chief Operating Officer joined Ontario Energy Board in December 2007″. In the past … “Aleck … led government affairs in Canada for Enron Corp. and was involved in the initial restructuring of Ontario’s electricity market.” [Ontario Energy Board website] http://www.oeb.gov.on.ca/OEB/About+the+OEB/Executive+Management+Team

This description of Aleck Dadson mentioning Enron was removed from Ontario Energy Board website shortly after it was exposed on Burning Dinosaur blog on October 27, 2008
Canada’s dirty nuclear secret

A serious warning that Canadians should know about first-hand

Neil Reynolds, Globe and Mail

Published on Friday, Jan. 01, 201

 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/canadas-dirty-nuclear-secret/article1416520/

Paul McKay is an environmental journalist who has won Canada’s highest awards for business writing and investigative reporting. In his distinguished career, he has written for newspapers (The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Ottawa Citizen), magazines (Harrowsmith, Maclean’s) and the CBC (television and radio documentaries).

He has published five books. With Atomic Accomplice: How Canada Deals in Deadly Deceit, Mr. McKay documents the official secrecy that has protected Canada’s nuclear industry from public scrutiny for two generations – and demonstrates why Canadian environmentalists have much more to worry about than global warming.

It is a damning and alarming indictment – and thoroughly bipartisan, too. Written from years of accumulated research, Mr. McKay spares neither the left nor the right. The CCF’s Tommy Douglas, the socialist premier from uranium-rich Saskatchewan, lobbied hard in the 1950s for federal subsidies to bankroll uranium mines. More recently, the NDP’s Lorne Calvert, as Saskatchewan premier, championed the sale of uranium to China – only one in the list of dictatorships courted by Canada as prospective clients for this country’s government-sustained nuclear industry.

Beyond doubt, this industry has survived solely through overt and covert government manipulation of the marketplace; in the case of Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau, for example, through a shameful price-fixing conspiracy that inflated the price of uranium more than fivefold. Federal subsidies to the industry – so far – exceed $30-billion. Prime Minister Stephen Harperhas trebled support for the industry, committing a further $1.7-billion in the past three years…. Read more:

 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/canadas-dirty-nuclear-secret/article1416520/
UNITED ONTARIO

Print . Post . Email . Mail. Contact:

Hon Gerry Phillips, Minister of Energy and Infrastructure  gphillips.mpp@liberal.ola.org

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty  dmcguinty.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

Note: Ontario on a dime is on pace for not less but more Coal, Gas and Nuclear power.

Imagine when the McGuinty liberals are rightly gone in 2011 and most likely replaced

by the Hudak Harrisite conservatives and they love Coal, Gas and Nuclear plus Privatization of Energy.

Ontario was a light in a model to help defeat Global Warming- if this change occurs and all indications are on this track-then we have dug ourselves in a deeper hole. We will pay the Greatest Price. We must get off this dangerous political/economic Carousel.

We Must Act Now

Paradigm Shift Environmental Alliance(a homeless network of transborder
activists, students, academics, Aboriginal etc.) psea does not do media
interviews since july 2007,we thank all media for their inquires.
Please feel free to use anything on this site.

www.floodiceorfire.wordpress.com

 psea4earth@gmail.com

Abolition King Coal, Fossil Fuels, Nuclear Power and Weapons Everywhere!

The Great Struggle Continues….