As Ontario election campaign kicks off, East end power line still an option

Transforming Toronto is urging east-end residents to make the proposed East Toronto Transmission Line (ETTL) an issue in the Ontario election campaign that begins today. The election offers many opportunities to ask candidates how they will help stop the line.

In a presentation Aug. 29, the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) made it clear that the ETTL, sometimes called the third line, is still very much an option. A map in the OPA’s presentation of the new Integrated Power System Plan for Ontario (Click here to read the document) clearly shows a line from the Parkway Transformer Station in Markham to the Hearn Transformer Station near the mouth of the Don River.

The Plan reflects current Liberal government policy. The Liberal approach is best summarized as “the ETTL if necessary, but not necessarily the ETTL.” In July, Steve Erwin, spokesperson for Dwight Duncan, said: “What the minister has said over and over again… is that conservation and distributed generation and co-generation projects and other renewables, if they succeed and if residents use them, we can avoid a third transmission line into Toronto.”

Meanwhile, at the local level, Joyce Rowlands, the Liberal candidate for Toronto-Danforth, has told residents on Logan Avenue that she is against the ETTL. Toronto-Danforth MPP Peter Tabuns, a New Democrat, is campaigning against the line. The NDP says its energy plan, with “targets for efficiency, localized cogeneration and green power, and conservation… sets the stage to protect the community from the possibility of a high voltage transmission line, and the Portlands Energy Centre from becoming operational. Aggressive investment in efficiency and green power will allow Toronto to provide itself with the electricity security it needs to make the transmission line and Portlands Energy Centre redundant.”

For this election, the question to put to candidates is not, “What is your position on the East Toronto Transmission Line?” The real question on the doorstep, and in all-candidates meetings, is: “If elected, will you issue a legal directive to the Ontario Power Authority to remove the East Toronto Transmission Line as an option? If elected, will you insist that the $600 million that the line would cost be invested instead in conversation programs and clean, green, local energy generation?”

Transforming Toronto urges residents to press all party candidates on their position and push for all-party consensus against the need for the ETTL. Watch community newspapers or visit candidate websites for details on all-candidates meetings in your riding.

For more information on the line itself, see the Ontario Clean Air Alliance’s fact sheet here.