I see a lot of people waking up to just how destructive this is to their communities and livelihood, and they’re starting to connect the dots between companies and the government and the way that we were hoodwinked into this, basically.

Protesters gathered at Thedford Bog near Grand Bend, Lake Huron, on Sunday, April 6, 2014, to decry plans to build a phalanx of industrial wind turbines in what is a designated Important Bird Area, and where every March some 10-15,000 tundra swans stop to rest and feed before continuing on their migration to the western Arctic.

Social worker Patti Kellar joined the protest and talked about the enormous social ills inflicted on the people and communities that have had industrial wind turbines forced upon them:

It’s horrendous! Communities are divided, families are divided, people aren’t speaking to one another. It’s – in terms of property and inheritance and the destruction of farmland – the complete and utter split.

Just days later, the Ontario Liberal government approved a new wind factory in nearby Lambton Shores – 92 industrial wind turbines to be added to the thousands already blighting the eastern edge of Lake Huron. More pending projects, including the one planned around the Thedford Bog, are sure to receive approval, given that the Green Energy Act, and the regulations and exemptions that go with it, are stacked heavily in favour of the wind proponents.

Tremendous social cost, unrest – really, really destroying the fabric of our community … in rural Ontario the very fabric of our communities is being destroyed. It’s quite sad.

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And the people who are struggling so hard to bring awareness to everyone are being targeted and bullied and threatened, and legal action is being taken against them, and it’s just heartbreaking. And they keep fighting on, we just keep going.

I see effects on everybody – friendships, family, people who have businesses in the area who have opinions but are afraid to voice them, are afraid to be boycotted. People may want more information and not feel comfortable getting it. 

There’s a huge public safety problem here and we really feel strongly that, in the bigger picture, there needs to be an infrastructure in place where the police and authorities have done due diligence and have a template in place to help people deal with this sort of thing, because we are not the only community with this amount of unrest. It’s happening all over Southwestern Ontario and it’s almost criminal in nature, I’m feeling.