Dear Editor,
As we approach Earth Day, which is Friday, April 22, amidst a Spring racing to catch up with promises of the season, birds singing mating songs, buds swelling to bursting on trees and bushes, and green showing up in the fields and lawns, it’s time to be grateful for the gifts of Earth and our opportunity to be here on Earth at this time. Earth is our home. Just as most of us give some due attention towards keeping our own homes clean, safe, and somewhat tidy, we also like to help our home, Earth, be clean, safe and somewhat tidy.
I recently learned from the Ontario Natural Builders Coalition (http://naturalbuildingcoalition.ca) that in Canada our homes and buildings produce about 40 percent of the carbon we put out into Earth’s atmosphere. That’s in heating them and in building them, including all the energy used to make the materials that make up our homes and buildings. Energy, we use energy.
So where does our energy come from? On December 1, 2015, Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli issued a directive to the Independent Electricity System Operator to sign a sole-source contract with Bruce Power for percent of Ontario’s electricity supply for 49 years. The government has refused to show the terms of the contract or to prove that Bruce Power is the lowest cost option to keep our lights on.
Mr. Chiarelli is the Liberal Party’s leading fundraiser from corporate donations at private events. Back in 2013, Bruce Power’s CEO Duncan Hawthorne hosted a private fundraiser for the Liberal Party that raised $100,000 in one night.
Earlier this month, Ontario’s Opposition Leader Patrick Brown asked Premier Kathleen Wynne to call a Commission of Inquiry into the Government’s political fundraising practices. According to Mr. Brown, “The people of Ontario need to know if government contracts and grants were traded for donations to the Ontario Liberal Party.”
This Earth Day in Toronto, Ukrainian-Canadians are commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl Nuclear disaster in Ukraine. The effects are still being felt there. Meanwhile, over in Japan, TEPCO’s Fukushima Nuclear disaster is still working on resolving what to do with all the radioactivity leaking into Pacific’s waters and all the cancers showing up five years afterwards in more and more humans.
The Ontario nuclear industry still has no realistic idea of what to do with all its radioactive waste, either at Bruce, Darlington, or Chalk River. Plus, it depends on the people of Ontario to pay for the insurance on their reactors. Why are we depending on our power coming from an industry that does not help our home, Earth, to be clean and safe?
In November, 2014, the Premiers of Ontario and Quebec agreed to investigate “long-term opportunities to expand electricity trade”. Quebec has surplus water hydropower to sell. It has even been selling some of the surplus to the U.S. for 3 cents a kWh. Nuclear is planning to charge around 9 cents per kWh. Vermont has a deal with Quebec at 5.8 cents per kWh.
Lots of money (around $700 million/year) could be saved from buying hydropower from Quebec, rather than spending money on re-building aging nuclear reactors. The money saved could be invested in developing energy efficiency and in insulating and upgrading homes and buildings so less energy is needed to heat and power them.
Of course, Quebec does not make donations to the Liberal Party of Ontario. We are going to need a change of mindset to get over this very obvious hurdle and move into a sustainable future. I wish Patrick Brown success in getting an Inquiry.
A healthier, safer, and greener future is possible on Earth,
Robbie Anderman
Killaloe, ON
