Glen Murray: Time to Fix Ontario's Broken Energy Decision Making
Nov 29th, 2012 6:45 AM
COMMUNITY ENERGY PLANNING BEST WAY TO DECIDE NEEDS AND LOCATIONS
For immediate release
News Release
TORONTO - November 28, 2012 - As the next Ontario Liberal Premier, Glen Murray would fix the broken system we now use in Ontario to decide how communities decide how to plan their vital needs like energy projects.
“Community issues like planning for energy should be decided locally as often as possible,” said Murray, leadership candidate and Ontario Liberal MPP for Toronto Centre.
“Too often, these decisions are now made by distant agencies at Queen’s Park with community involvement coming after the decisions are made. This can lead to unhappy communities and bad decisions, and it opens the door for the opposition to launch destructive campaigns.”
Glen Murray’s leadership program calls for
Community Energy Planning - he would amend the mandate of the Ontario Power Authority to require a specific role for local governments to get involved early in the decision-making over what kinds of energy projects are needed and where they should be located.
“With Community Energy Planning, we could avoid many of the difficulties that have come before, when the right decisions were made eventually but after conflict, cost and delay. The system we have now is broken. We can fix it. I know from my experience as a mayor that community planning works.”
Twice elected Mayor of Winnipeg, Glen Murray cut taxes in that city, reduced debt and government spending and oversaw renewal and new infrastructure that improved the community.
Glen Murray’s leadership plan for renewal as the next Ontario Liberal Premier calls for tax breaks for the middle class and small business, no-money-down tuition, cities and towns that work and smart government that listens.
Visit Glen Murray’s website http://www.renewliberal.com/
Watch Glen Murray’s video on cities and towns that work.
For more information
Emily Kirk
647-668-1076
-30-
Backgrounder
GLEN MURRAY: CITIES AND TOWNS THAT WORK
EMPOWERING COMMUNITIES TO DECIDE THEIR ENERGY AND PLANNING NEEDS
Issues
As Premier, Glen Murray would fix the broken system we now use in Ontario to decide how communities decide how to plan their vital needs like energy projects.
Too often, these decisions are made by distant agencies at Queen’s Park with community involvement coming after the decisions are made.
This can leave the people in our cities and towns unhappy. More importantly, it can lead to bad decisions. It also opens the door for the opposition to launch destructive campaigns which, rather than helping to reach better decisions, stop everyone from moving forward and getting it right sooner and cheaper.
As Premier, Glen Murray would make sure that Community Energy Planning helps the right decisions get made faster and in a more cost-effective way.
Glen Murray - Ideas, Action And Achievement
Glen Murray knows there’s a better way for Ontario to have cities and towns that work - community planning. He’s the only leadership candidate with experience running a big city, and doing it successfully.
Twice elected Mayor of Winnipeg, Canada’s eighth largest city, Glen Murray’s record of achievement and experience at the municipal level echoes his vision and goals for Ontario - smaller government, lower taxes and better service.
Over six years, Glen reduced taxes by more than 11 per cent, reduced debt by more than 40 per cent, reduced overall government spending by more than 6 per cent and oversaw significant renewal and new infrastructure that created jobs and a more livable community.
Glen Murray looked at the outdated ways that cities were financed and championed the call across Canada for a new approach to communities that became known as “The New Deal for Cities.” Following Glen’s lead, the federal government and then some provinces - including Ontario - began to dedicate gas tax revenues to urban causes. Today, communities across Ontario share a portion of federal and provincial gas taxes.
Glen’s call for renewal of the provincial income tax system and greater support for the middle class reflects the same way of looking at problems and identifying new and innovative solutions.
As a community organizer, city councillor, mayor, environmentalist, head of the Canadian Urban Institute and writer specializing in urban issues, Glen has had a public life devoted to understanding and meeting the needs of communities. Glen Murray knows there’s a better way to have community energy planning and other infrastructure planning, and he knows how to make it happen.
Why Community Energy Planning Is Important
Ontario’s communities need to rebuild and enhance their infrastructure - their electricity supplies, their transmission lines, roads, transit, sewers and water treatment. Our jobs and our economy depend on it.
In the new economy, communities have a different importance than in the past. Today, eight out of 10 jobs do not involve making goods, so relying on the availability of local resources is less important than before. At the same time, the quality of our communities has become more important - having great places to live and raise kids attracts good jobs and high-skill workers, because they’re mobile and will go where the quality of life is best.
Glen Murray understands the new economy. He believes that since planning, zoning, water and waste are all planned locally, and successfully, major infrastructure and energy should decided locally too, working within provincial guidelines.
In many Ontario communities the electricity supply is fine right now; in some, as the economy expands, there could be shortages, and it’s important to build new facilities to make sure the lights and power always go on.
Ontario Liberals made great progress after the 2003 blackout, when the PCs were still in power, and the NDP before them, and our systems like electricity and water treatment had run down, leading to hardship and damage. Under Ontario Liberals our air is cleaner, because we’re phasing out coal power, and our water is better protected too. In fact, since 2003, we’ve invested $75 billion in infrastructure - not just electricity and the environment but also roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, jails and courthouses.
Glen Murray thinks we need to do more to make sure this money is spent on projects - and at sites - where communities want it invested.
Community planning will help our economy and make our cities and towns even better places to work and live.
Community Energy Planning: How Glen Murray’s Plan Works
As Premier, Glen Murray has a straightforward plan that operate on a simple principle:
Community issues should be decided locally as often as possible.
Right now, for example, the decision on where to locate a power plant typically comes from provincial agencies, such as the Ontario Power Authority. We still need provincial input to help determine how much electricity a growing community is likely to need, and to set the standards for clean energy and encourage conservation.
But we need our communities, not Queen’s Park, to decide what kinds of power plants they want, and where they should be located.
With Glen Murray’s
Community Energy Planning, we could hear much earlier from communities that don’t agree with an initial proposal for locating a gas plant, for example - either because it’s too close to where people live or because the area has changed and grown since the original plan was drawn up.
As Premier McGuinty said, “There’s never a wrong time to make the right decision.” As Premier, Glen Murray would make sure the right decision is made at the right time - the beginning - by letting communities have a say in the decision making.
This does NOT mean communities can simply say Not In My Backyard to everything. Communities should be responsible though, for deciding how they will get their power, what kind makes sense for their own residents and meets environmental standards and where it should be located.
It DOES mean that Ontario will continue to have a clean energy future - with more renewable energy, more conservation, cleaner air and water and tens of thousands of clean energy jobs. The difference is that the clean energy facilities will be built where communities want them, not where an agency ordered them to be built.
How Glen Murray Will Bring In Community Energy Planning
As Premier, Glen Murray’s Ontario Liberal government would amend the Electricity Restructuring Act 2004 which created the Ontario Power Authority.
These amendments would change the mandate of the OPA and create a specific role and mandate for local municipal authorities in the planning, oversight and approval of energy generation. The OPA would remain as the province’s main resource of energy planning, but it would be required by law to have a collaborative relationship with local communities, with final authority resting with local authorities.
These changes will empower communities. The ability to decide also brings the responsibility to choose. Communities would be responsible for creating locally desirable solutions to meet local energy needs, decided in cooperation with the OPA.
What You Can Do
• Get involved - Here’s how you can help become a Glen Murray delegate at the Ontario Liberal Leadership Convention in Toronto at Maple Leaf Gardens on January 26-27.
• Donate - click here to make your donation
• Visit Glen Murray’s website http://www.renewliberal.ca/
• Watch Glen Murray’s video on cities and towns that work.
• For more information
Emily Kirk
647.668.1076
-30-
