Three-armed bandits with special rights to attempt Toronto heist

Three-armed bandits with special rights. That’s how some Germans describe industrial wind turbines, according to the German news magazine Der Spiegel. And that label seems to be a universal truth. Wherever in the world you find wind turbines, you’ll also see misguided government legislation specially designed to remove inconvenient barriers for wind companies so they can have their way unimpeded over the democratic rights of tax- and ratepayers, the environmental protection of flora and fauna, and health and welfare of people. The invasive, financially rapacious scourge of wind turbines has continued almost completely unabated in Ontario, were it not for the Blanding’s turtle, which stopped one such industrial complex from being erected on Crown land in Prince Edward County.

To date no industrial wind factory has managed to gain a foothold in any large urban centre in Ontario, though not for lack of trying. Now, a new threat: a planned wind factory on the Leslie Street Spit, also known as Tommy Thomson Park, “Toronto’s Urban Wilderness“. The man-made park with its over 300 bird species, “wildflower meadows, cottonwood forests, coastal marshes, cobble beaches and sand dunes” is a favourite destination for nature-starved urban visitors, families on bikes and rollerblades, or hiking on foot equipped with bird watching scopes, cameras or fishing poles. The park is one of Ontario’s 70 designated Important Bird Areas, which, incredibly, have no legislated protection from industrial wind development.

Trying to create an urban-rural divide on this issue would miss the mark. Some people may be tempted to engage in wind turbine Schadenfreude, jubilating that the seemingly uncaring, Liberal-voting Toronto populace finally has its comeuppance, for once facing having to host the monster turbines themselves.  Fact is that for a variety of reasons, most people, urban or not, who aren’t directly affected by the health and environmental evils of wind turbines, have been living in blissful ignorance. But once the uninformed dig deep and find out the sorry truth about the unprecedented wind energy scam that is being perpetrated by government held in thrall by foreign wind companies, they get it. When properly informed, urbanites and others are fully on board with the plight of rural wind turbine victims (the people, the communities, the birds, bats and other animals, the landscape), and enraged that government is wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on this useless, destructive technology.

Informed rural residents and urbanites can stand united with the same goal, namely that there should be no further wind energy development anywhere, and that the turbines that exist should be torn down. There is no urban-rural divide. There are only the odious, venal government and wind deceivers who would claim that their green is brilliant when the truth is it’s putting us all in the red for decades to come. In the process they’re destroying people’s lives and homes, human health, property values and the beautiful, restorative natural environments prized by all Ontarians, no matter where they happen to live.