Randy Pettapiece vows that if elected, his party will give the planning authority back to municipalities when it comes to industrial wind farms.
As the Perth-Wellington candidate for the Progressive Conservative party, Pettapiece said he has seen first hand how divisive the Green Energy Act – which delegates that authority to the province – has been in Wellington County, and particularly in Mapleton Township.
“We have neighbours who aren’t talking right now … and that isn’t right,” Pettapiece said on June 15 at a campaign press conference on Main Street in Mount Forest.
He was joined by a fellow PC Party member, Simcoe-Grey MPP Jim Wilson at the event, which is part of a cross-province PC media blitz pairing prospective candidates with current MPPs. Pettapiece is holding several such events with Wilson across the Perth-Wellington riding.
The local candidate committed to changes to the Green Energy Act that would restore some power to municipalities when it comes to wind farms, but he acknowledged for projects approved before the Oct. 6 election, it will be too late.
“We will honour the contracts already awarded,” Pettapiece said.
That may include the NextEra Energy project – a 10-turbine proposal located southwest of Arthur, in Mapleton Township – which Pettapiece agreed officials are trying to rush through before the provincial election.
“Anybody in [the wind farm] business is trying to get their projects through quickly because they’ve seen Changebook,” he said of his party’s 43-page platform package.
One of the other major problems with the Green Energy Act, Pettapiece noted, is “It’s not affordable.” If in power, he said renewable energy will remain part of the PC platform, but the new government would negotiate “much lower” rates.
When asked what he foresees as the other major election issues in his riding, Pettapiece said one of the biggest is energy.
“Hydro rates have gone up … all over Perth-Wellington,” he said.
According to Changebook, a PC government would remove the harmonized sales tax (HST) from home heating and hydro bills and also get rid of the debt retirement charge on hydro bills.
Pettapiece said his party would also increase spending for health care and education – two issues that are always important for locals.
He explained the PC party formed Changebook with input from people all across Ontario and he added voters need more of that type of constructive interaction, especially locally.
“Politicians should listen to people in their riding,” he said.
Both Pettapiece and Wilson were available to answer questions on the PC’s platform, but a large majority of their time at the media event last week focused on trying to discredit Dalton McGuinty.
“He taxes, he spends, and then he taxes some more,” Wilson said of the premier, adding McGuinty has twice broken election promises not to increase taxes.
At one point, Wilson even compared McGuinty’s “siege” on family budgets to a raccoon trying to pry into a family’s garbage.
“There is only one way we can prevent Dalton McGuinty from raising our taxes after Oct. 6 – and that is by replacing him,” Wilson said.
At the end of his McGuinty-bashing speech, Wilson produced a scroll measuring about 10 feet long.
He and Pettapiece posed for photos with the prop, which featured a lengthy list of what Wilson called tax increases or new taxes imposed on Ontarians by McGuinty.
