Letters to the Minister of Environment on 'Lack of Proper Consultation'

To send a short pre-written letter re: Lack of Proper Consultation - Please click here!

To send a longer personalized letter, follow the instructions below:

Step 1.  CLICK HERE to open your email composer. It will already contain the full list of recipients and a subject line but you can add, remove or change any of these.

Step 2.  Below are a series of text elements which you can copy and paste to create your custom letter. When created this way there is no limit on how long the letters can be. If you like you can can combine all the pieces below into a single letter but you would probably want to do some editing.

Step 3.  Add your full name and address at the end.

Step 4.  Click SEND

A properly conducted EA is supposed to reassure the public that the proposed facility is safe. However in this case, surveys of local residents indicate that 80% know essentially nothing about the proposal and of those that do, greater than 90% oppose it.

The so-called consultation conducted by the project team was about appearances. True consultation is about listening and addressing concerns. This did not happen.

The "hundreds" of consultations listed in the EA were almost all just meetings of various councils and committees. While they were open to the public, it would have been a major challenge to find out in advance what was on the agenda.

In the final analysis, those who opposed the incine4rator held far more public consultations than the proponents, and these were conducted at their own expence.

The EA process was misleading by design. Code words like thermal treatment, energy from waste, and EFW were used throughout and were designed to mislead. The word Incineration was not used.

The process was designed to obfuscate. The EA contains reams of information but the most significant data (including a great deal which contradicts the proponents own conclusions) is buried amongst tens of thousands of pages.

Throughout the public consultation, there was little room for input other than to respond to narrow information provided by the consultants. Frequent comments by both residents and councillors that they preferred increased recycling were ignored. Because the project was “to process waste left over after composting and recycling”, we were supposed to believe that increased recycling was somehow built in to the project. This was a smokescreen.

The consultants engaged Ipsos Reid to conduct a telephone survey in 2006. There were 400 calls made. This survey was conducted simply to put a check off that requirement. It was the only instance in which the consultants ‘went out to the community’ rather than having the community come to them. The questions in this survey were minimal and leading, and any conclusions that might be drawn should be discounted.

For instance, people were never asked whether they preferred enhanced recycling or ‘zero waste’ as an alternative to ‘thermal treatment’

The voice of the majority of the constituency has been blatantly disregarded by several arrogant local politicians who voted for the incinerator despite continual  opposition from a large percentage of local residents.

There will be a municipal election in October 2010. Ideally the question on the decision should be put to the voters and let them decide what the best solution is for them regarding waste management - not by a few politicians who may only be looking after their own interest and not that of the voters.

Mr. Gerretsen, I urge you to do the right thing by not approving the plan to build the planned incinerator in Clarington and endorse this direction, which is best for the voters of Clarington and Durham Region.

The Regions did not adequately inform, consult and respond to citizens’ and peer reviewers’ concerns on air quality issues

The Regions failed to respond to the actual findings of their own ambient monitoring;

The public consultation program was neither sufficient, meaningful nor effective.

The proponents failed to respond to public and expert reviewer concerns, and selected Courtice 01 as the preferred site without first addressing the fundamental deficiencies identified.

The proponents failed to strike an advisory committee at the inception of the EA process as they were supposed to.