Press Release

PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY ONTARIO, CANADA Phone (613) 471-1017

Contact: Ian Hanna Phone: (613) 471-1017

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 9 A.M. EDT, March 23, 2009

Three Ontario citizens have thrown down the gauntlet to the Ontario Government and the Industrial Wind Turbine Industry today…

“It’s a matter of protecting Ontario from intrusive, unnecessary Industrial Development. We are proposing a Green Energy initiative that respects the province’s natural environment, which clearly must be preserved,” said spokesperson and co-author Ian Hanna. “It is shameful that the Ontario Government is actually trying to dismantle environmental protection under the pretense of creating a green energy plan.”

These residents of Prince Edward County in Eastern Ontario are challenging Dalton McGuinty and George Smitherman to conduct an in-depth comparison of their Green Alternative Plan (GAP) with the Government’s new Green Energy Act.

“They may be surprised that there actually are ways to reduce fossil fuel use and Green House Gas Emissions and to protect the environment, all at the same time. It seems this Government has been fixated on Industrial Wind Turbines for so long that, they may have forgotten these goals are truly compatible,” Hanna added.

“We have developed something to which every Ontario citizen can relate,” added co-author, Henri Garand. “Unlike Industrial Wind developments, which provide little in the way of real energy or lower green house gas emissions and which send billions of  dollars out of the province, GAP offers a strong commitment to conservation, reduction of waste, and small-scale distributed power generation that should make Ontario a world leader in community-based, renewable and sustainable green energy production.”

GAP is sensitive to the needs of all Ontario residents, be they urban or rural. Name calling and bullying tactics will no longer have any place in the energy debate – GAP finally offers a sensible, suitable and desirable alternative to all citizens.

Small-scale, renewable energy generation from solar, small wind and geothermal sources, allows householders to reduce their draw from the grid. GAP provides the necessary resources to retrofit 10,000 homes each year – at little or no cost to the home-owner, in a self-financing plan and it forges standards for all new home building in the province. All dollars are spent in Ontario – all services and supplies come from Ontario. GAP produces real and verifiable jobs, and it will help make Ontario a world leader in small-scale design, manufacturing and supply of renewable energy technology.

Over the next 20 years GAP will reduce cumulative greenhouse gas emissions by over of 12 Million tons – compared to Industrial Wind Turbines which will produce no measurable reductions.

Under GAP, the Provincial Government will engage Ontario citizens as partners, instead of partnering with Multinational Energy Companies in Industrial Wind Projects and treating citizens as the enemy.

“A great benefit of GAP is that it moves electricity production closer and closer to where it is needed,” Garand said. “Distributed generation has to be a primary goal, as it means so much transmission can eventually be eliminated. The waste – the loss of electricity during transmission will steadily be reduced by an increasing capacity of homes and businesses to generate their own electricity, on site”

“Industrial Wind developments are the same old centralized production facilities. The small amount of electricity they do produce must be transmitted around the province like power from any coal or gas plant. GAP reduces what is taken from the grid – resulting in less transmission, not more.”

The authors of GAP have no financial (or any other) interest in the renewable energy sector – they are simply residents who value the richness of Ontario’s natural environment and support its conservation.

“However”, said Hanna, “the thing that concerns us most is the cloak of secrecy the Ontario Government is throwing over the entire Energy file. With GAP, there is no need for secrecy, no need to abandon environmental assessments – no need for the unwarranted attack on municipal planning.  And….there is no need for exemption from the Freedom of Information Act, an indispensable tool that helps avoid any suggestion of fraud or corruption.”

“GAP provides the Government of Ontario with an unprecedented opportunity to engage the public as partners in a remarkable journey towards environmental security”, he added.

Ian L. Hanna

Kent Hawkins

Henri Garand

Prince Edward County, Ontario