What is an "Unwilling Host"

 Municipalities not willing hosts to criticism
 

Huron Expositor - Sep 25, 2013, GERARD CRECES
 

Wind turbines and municipal governments are like oil and water.

All around this great county, municipalities are proudly proclaiming they are not willing hosts to the structures, though what they say and what is taking place are two very different realities.

Bluewater, Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh, Central Huron -each of these councils have members that have options, leases or turbines on their property yet they are all unwilling hosts on paper.

Think about that.

Municipalities declaring themselves anti-turbine obviously have some influential willing hosts. Why? Conflict of interest rules are preventing the answer to that question from ever being discussed.

The simple fact that reeves, mayors and other members of municipal councils are welcoming to turbines shows a big division between ideology and reality. Whether they see a future in green energy or a steady stream of income for giving up a piece of their property, the mere existence of these things in Huron County shows that everyday people in our communities are okay with them.

The Green Energy Act is heavy-handed and certainly favours corporate interests, but so does most, if not all, federal environmental legislation or the gutting thereof.

Municipalities are relatively helpless in the fight against turbines, and open hostility has rendered those who favour them silent for fear of repercussion.

Listen to the gallery boo people who speak in support of turbines at council meetings in various municipalities in Huron. It's embarrassing to watch and as undemocratic as the force-feeding GEA.

So, who decides what a willing host is?

The province handed down an edict saying turbines are the next big energy producer and we may as well get used to having them.

The municipalities are now saying we don't want to have them so get used to it.

But as we continue to see, individual landowners are the only people who can say yes or no to these things, and we have to get used to that.

A municipality saying it is not a willing host is unfortunately as ineffective as a child who doesn't want to eat his or her vegetables. They fume and fuss and pick at their plate, but sooner or later, they will have to clear it or sit at the table indefinitely.

The only real way to decide if a municipality is not a willing host is a referendum.

Anything less is as misleading as a wildlife study conducted in the middle of the coldest February or a groundwater study conducted upstream.

There are many flaws with the way our electricity is delivered. Turbines, however, are only a very small piece. Look at the provincial Sunshine List, and count how many OPG and Hydro One employees are making over 100,000 each year.
 
The list is so large it is broken up into subsections for each letter of the alphabet. Every 10 people on that list represent at the very least $1 million of taxpayer money.

There were 11,315 Hydro One and OPG employees on that list in 2012.

At the minimum -the bare minimum -that means $1,131,500,000 each year is going to salaries alone. That doesn't begin to tackle pension debts on the public dime or anyone making close to but not quite $100,000.

The OPG and Hydro One's CEOs made close to $3 million combined last year -that s two employees earning 30 base sunshine salaries.

It's not turbines that are killing taxpayers -at least not in any significant way -it's corporate greed. In this case, however, it's a Crown corporation that will happily let the villagers pick on the new kid on the block instead of addressing the horrendous waste they do nothing to curb.

Until municipalities have that conversation, everything else is a waste of time, money and energy -literally and figuratively.