Last Tuesday the government of Ontario announced the Thunder Bay Generating Station – Ontario’s last coal-fired power plant – had burnt off its last supply of coal. The electricity of Canada’s most populous province is officially coal free.

“Today we celebrate a cleaner future for our children and grandchildren while embracing the environmental benefits that our cleaner energy sources will bring,” says Bob Chiarelli, Ontario’s 
Minister of Energy, in a press release.

The coal power plant in Thunder Bay was one of five in Ontario that a little over ten years ago produced 25 per cent of the province’s electricity. Burning coal is a particularly polluting form of generating electricity and shutting down Ontario’s five coal plants is the equivalent of pulling seven million cars off the road in terms of global warming greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Ontario is the first province or state in North America to successfully phase out the burning of coal to produce electricity. The Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development describes the move as the “single largest regulatory action in North America” to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The province’s coal phase out arrives a year ahead of schedule. Ontario Premier Ernie Eves committed in 2002 to shut down all the province’s coal power plants by 2015. Last year, the province’s current premier Kathleen Wynne introduced legislation that will ban coal from being used for electricity production in Ontario ever again. 

The Ontario Clear Air Alliance (OCAA), a Toronto-based organization that played a central role in the coal phase out welcomed Tuesday’s announcement describing it as a “great day for our province and our planet.”

David vs Goliath – Ontarians' Campaign to Shut Down Coal Plants

“When we started our campaign, people in Ontario who considered themselves to be politically astute, assumed that we didn’t have a chance to achieve a coal phase-out. And it is not surprising that they thought so. We were engaged in a David and Goliath battle,” says Jack Gibbons, director of the Ontario Clear Air Alliance.

“The majority of the people of Ontario didn’t know that Ontario had coal-fired power plants. And they certainly didn’t know that our Nanticoke Generating Station on Lake Erie was the largest coal plant in North America and Canada’s #1 air polluter,” Gibbons told DeSmog Canada. Nanticoke shut down last December.

The Ontario Clean Air Alliance formed in 1997 to push for an end to coal in the province. Currently the Alliance consists of ninety public health organizations, faith groups, unions, hydro utilities and municipalities, including the City of Toronto.

“People thought that while the OCAA might be well meaning it was engaged in a futile campaign that was sure to fail,” recalls Gibbons.

The political context in Ontario was less than ideal for a campaign against coal when the Alliance got started. Progressive Conservative leader Mike Harris was premier at that time. The ‘Harris Years’ remembered by many Ontarians as a time of severe cuts to the public sector and clashes with environmental groups. This was not the premier one would expect to bring about the end of coal in Ontario.

Surprisingly, it was Harris who legislated in 2001 the closing of the Lakeview coal power plant in Mississauga. Lakeview closed four years later becoming the first of Ontario’s five coal plants to shut down.

Game Changer – Ontario Medical Association Speaks Out Against Air Pollution

“The involvement of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) in the air pollution issue changed everything,” Gibbons told DeSmog Canada.

On May 12th, 1998, the president of the OMA, an organization representing the province’s doctors, announced “air pollution is a public health crisis” in Ontario. Two years later the Association released a study showing air pollution killed 1,900 Ontarians per year and cost the economy $10 billion annually.

“While the politicians could ignore the environmentalists when they said that smog kills, they couldn’t ignore Ontario’s doctors. And neither the politicians nor OPG (Ontario Power Generation) dared to challenge the doctors when they said that air pollution is a public health crisis in Ontario. As a result, the politicians had to find a solution to this crisis,” says Gibbons from Toronto.

The Thunder Bay coal power plant will be converted to biomass in order to keep producing electricity and has retained sixty jobs in the process. According to the province of Ontario, a combination of nuclear, biomass, natural gas, waterpower, wind and solar power have made up for the power coal once produced. All are far less polluting than coal-fired electrical generation.

Is a Phase Out of Nuclear Power Next? 

As for the Ontario Clear Air Alliance, one campaign has ended and a new campaign has already begun. The Alliance’s focus now is to phase out nuclear power in Ontario, possibly a far more difficult task given over half of Ontario’s electricity comes from nuclear and the province’s two biggest political parties – Liberals and Progressive Conservatives – support nuclear power.

Gibbons believes by using a similar strategy that the Alliance’s used for its coal campaign they will succeed in phasing out nuclear. The pillars of the organization’s success with coal, according to Gibbons, was having a clear message, good solution, and credible messenger, addressing an important political issue, and building a strong base of public support.

“That in a nutshell is how we achieved the coal phase-out,” Gibbons told DeSmog Canada.

The Ontario Clear Air Alliance’s goal is for Ontario to run on one hundred per cent renewable energy by 2030.

Image Credit: coal power plant by Wigwam Jones via Flickr

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The government of Ontario is holding community discussions in northern Ontario to hear opinions on TransCanada’s proposed Energy East oil pipeline project. Part of the $12 billion pipeline project involves converting 1,900 kilometres of pipeline from natural gas to oil in northern Ontario and constructing one hundred kilometers of new pipeline in southeastern Ontario.

Ontario’s public forum on Energy East may be the first of its kind in the country. Provinces do not usually hold community meetings on oil pipelines that cross provincial boundaries such as Energy East. The National Energy Board (NEB) – Canada’s energy regulator – has jurisdiction over interprovincial pipelines, not the provinces.  

The forum appears to be the result of public outcry in Ontario over Enbridge’s Line 9 oil pipeline project and restrictions the National Energy Board (NEB) placed on public participation in the project's review process. Last March, the NEB approved Line 9 despite public safety concerns about transporting oilsands bitumen through the pipeline.

“The erosion of the National Energy Board process, in both accessibility and scope, has left a void in need of being filled. That is why the Ontario government stepping in is so commendable and needed. The Ontario Energy Board process is much more inclusive to the broad range of concerns the public has,” says Yan Roberts of North Bay, Ontario. North Bay’s community discussion took place on April 2nd.   

The Ontario Energy Board – Ontario's energy regulator – has been instructed by the province to consult the public, First Nations and Metis, a wide range of provincial organizations, and technical experts on what they believe the impacts of the Energy East pipeline will be. All Ontarians regardless if they live along the proposed pipeline’s route are invited to participate in the community discussions and send in written comments to the Board.

The schedule of Ontario's Energy East public forum.

Even though the NEB must decide whether pipeline projects are “in the public interest,” the NEB relies on pipeline companies to inform communities on new projects. In recent years, the NEB has limited public hearing participation to only those members of the public that can demonstrate they are “directly affected” by pipeline projects or have “relevant expertise.”

“Visiting the towns along Energy East’s route for their community discussions and allowing testimony to be submitted easily really shows that the Ontario government is sincere about listening to and representing the many concerns Ontario has with Energy East,” Roberts told DeSmog Canada. Roberts, who has been following the Energy East project closely, is a farmer and community organizer for North Bay’s local citizens’ group. 

All Issues Including Climate Change and the Expansion of the Oilsands Are Heard

“I feel quite confident that citizens’ comments and concerns are being properly heard and reported to the OEB (Ontario Energy Board), and that the OEB is listening,” says Teika Newton of Kenora, Ontario.

Kenora in northwestern Ontario was the Ontario Energy Board’s first stop in its community discussions that began last week. Newton says the community meeting was well attended and all issues pertaining to the pipeline could be discussed. Unlike the NEB process on pipelines, residents were permitted to express concerns of Energy East’s impacts on climate change and the expansion of the oilsands (also called tar sands) in Alberta. The NEB no longer considers ‘upstream’ impacts of pipelines in its decisions.

TransCanada's Energy East's prosposed route in Ontario

“The OEB process involves engaging directly with communities, hearing concerns from citizens, and dutifully recording what has been heard, even if it is not flattering to government or the project proponents. It is unbiased and objective, as a regulator should be,” says Newton, who is a project manager of a university research project in Kenora and co-founder of Transition Kenora, a local sustainability group.

Feedback From Ontarians Will be the Basis of a Provincial Report

“Only time will tell if the OEB’s final report to the Minister of Energy will be as clear in articulating citizen opposition and concerns,” Newton told DeSmog Canada.

The Ontario Energy Board will file a report based on the feedback it receives over the coming months with Ontario’s Ministry of Energy. The Ministry will use the report in shaping Ontario’s position on the pipeline project, which will be presented to the NEB in the upcoming Energy East hearings. The hearings will be scheduled once TransCanada has submitted an official project application to the NEB. TransCanada is expected to apply this summer.

The current round of community discussions will wrap up in Cornwall, near Quebec on April 8th, but this is by no means the end of Ontario’s Energy East public forum. A second round of discussions will take place after TransCanada submits its application for the pipeline with the NEB. A conference for provincial organizations – from oil industry advocacy groups to environmental organizations – to present evidence on Energy East will also take place this summer.

“The OEB has created an avenue for people to have their concerns represented, whereas the NEB increasingly seems to have the public's concerns rejected. It will now be for the people of Ontario to come out and make their voices heard,” Roberts told DeSmog Canada. Roberts is also a local tourism operator in North Bay, Ontario.

Involvment in Pipeline Process Easy

The Ontario Energy Board’s consideration of the Energy East project questions what the loss of a natural gas pipeline will mean for the province’s natural gas supply and investigates the pipeline’s safety, economic impacts and the impacts on the local environment, communities, and First Nations and Metis.

“I am hopeful that through this careful and comprehensive process of engagement, they will obtain a clear picture of how Ontarians feel with regard to Energy East,” says Newton of Kenora, Ontario.

The Ontario Energy Board has created an easy to navigate website for the public forum, complete with information backgrounders on Energy East and ‘toolkits’ for Ontarians to start and record discussions on the pipeline with friends, family and co-workers. Written comments on Energy East will accepted until April 30th. A second round of written submissions will take place in the summer.

Neither the Ontario Energy Board nor the province have the legal power to stop the project. But neither does the NEB. The federal government assumed final decision-making power over all pipeline projects after the passage of the 2012 federal omnibus bill c-38. NEB decisions on pipeline projects are now considered 'recommendations.' 

If approved, Energy East will be the largest pipeline in North America stretching some 4,600-kilometers from Hardisty, Alberta to Saint John, New Brunswick.

TransCanada claims Energy East will transport 1.1 millions barrels of oil and oilsands bitumen a day. DeSmog Canada reported last month the majority of Energy East’s oil and bitumen will be exported overseas, and will not be refined domestically.

Image Credit: Ontario Energy Board, TransCanada

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