Residents already in the process of setting up small-scale ground-mounted solar panels will get the original rate of 80.2 cents per kilowatt-hour they were promised, while new applicants will see a decrease in potential returns.

On Aug. 13, the Ontario Power Authority announced a new finalized price for the microFIT ground-mounted solar price category. The new rate has been set at 64.2 cents per kilowatt hour, up from the 58.8 cents initially proposed.

“I am glad to see (the Liberal government) finally pulled their horn back in,” said Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington MPP Randy Hillier. “The people who have spent all of that money and time installing these systems are back to where they should be.”

In July, local government representatives said they were surprised to learn the program dropped its pricing category from 80.2 cents per kilowatt-hour to 58.8 cents.

Anyone who had plans for installation or were in the process and did not have a finalized contract would have received the lower rate.

The new category is effective immediately for eligible projects with applications submitted any time after noon on July 2 of this year, when the new price category was initially announced. Any ground-mounted projects submitted prior to that time will have the 80.2 cents per kilowatt-hour price honoured, regardless of receiving a new contract or conditional offer. The projects must be installed and have a connection requested by May 31, 2011.

Hillier, who has not been an advocate of the green energy policy from the beginning, said many people were attracted to the program because of the rates.

“We still don’t know how we’re going to pay for this,” he said. “He’s lowered the price for these new applicants, but still, now it’s only 10 times over the market rate.”

While Hillier indicated he feels this will be a problem going forward, he is pleased to see the provincial government doing the right thing.

“Those 10,000 people who were put in untold turmoil in their expenses and costs can sleep a little easier this week,” he said. “We still have about 1,000 people around the province who have been screwed on doing new barns (as the higher pricing only applies to ground-mounted systems).”

According to the Ontario Power Authority, more than 19,000 applications have been received since the launch of the program last fall.

Small-scale solar energy systems, such as the microFIT program, have been promoted in Lanark County recently following proposals for a solar farm in Beckwith Township, on Highway 15 near Franktown.

While municipal representatives and residents say they are not against solar energy, most were against the idea of clear-cutting 100 acres to make way for the new solar farm.

A Lanark County bylaw threw a wrench into the potential plans, as there is a tree-cutting bylaw which restricts clearing trees anywhere within the county.

Other proposed solar farms in Mississippi Mills and Tay Valley Township are running into the same tree-cutting bylaw issue.

Deputy Reeve Sharon Mousseau and Coun. Brian Dowdall both made it clear at the Beckwith site public meeting that, while they, along with the rest of the residents in Beckwith, are all for green energy and initiatives, it just doesn’t make sense to eliminate one natural resource to make way for another.

Original Article

Arc Electrical Ltd. is a small company run by a young couple from their home, where babies and bookkeeping occupy the president, Bridget Carey, better known as Mom.

It grew from nothing in 2007 to have six employees and total work in 2009 in the $600,000 range, led by Bridget’s husband Andy Nita, 36, also an instructor at Algonquin College.

The future looked bright.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, meanwhile, is the largest union of electricians in the world, with 725,000 members, and an Ottawa local with a high-profile membership drive underway.

In the fall of 2009, the IBEW tried to unionize the workers at Arc Electrical.

There is no other way to describe the outcome than a complete mess, so bad it was raised on the floor of the Ontario legislature.

To an outsider, it’s a story full of shocking twists and turns. “I was,” concludes Nita, “just blown away.”

To fast-forward to the end:

- The vote, after fits and starts, ended up deadlocked at 3-3, meaning the application failed, but not before it cost Arc about $60,000 in legal fees and substitute labour costs.

- The couple suspect Arc was “salted” by the IBEW, meaning a pro-union worker was directed there, with the express purpose of organizing the remaining staff.

- Because the three pro-union workers left shortly after the vote, Nita had to scramble to fulfill his contracts, working 18-hour days for about a month straight, with a pregnant wife at home.

- In their words, Arc has been “decimated” and is now down to Nita and a part-time apprentice.

- Battered by the experience, Nita decided to take a full-time job at Algonquin, rather than risk waging war with the IBEW again.

- The divisions over union membership are so deep that Nita says he’s been the target of veiled threats by IBEW members in his own classroom.

“It knocked us back right to the beginning,” said Nita. “We’ve lost two years of time invested.”

The couple’s complaint landed on the desk of MPP Randy Hillier, strangely enough an electrician by training and a former IBEW member.

He calls the union tactics “atrocious” and argued that they undermined a small businessman’s ability to make a living for his family.

“It’s a system based on dishonesty.”

Arc makes no bones about the fact it was a non-union shop. Paying about $9 less an hour ($28 versus $37) was one way the little company could win contracts and get its feet off the ground.

Nita’s plan was to eventually offer employees proper benefits and a profit-sharing option, as an incentive to better production and greater efficiencies.

When the company grew to six employees, Nita suspected something was afoot because of evasive answers from some staff, the presence of a former union member and a new hire who seemed to know too much about everybody.

Things came to a head in September 2009 when two organizers from the IBEW arrived at a job site to have Arc workers sign union cards, the first step in certifying the company as a union shop.

In written statements, two workers said the IBEW reps were aggressive and threatening, particularly to an apprentice, then only 19.

“They did not say ONE word about what the union does for the worker in terms of packages and benefits but rather ‘if we did not sign these cards, we will not have a job tomorrow,’ ” wrote one anti-union worker.

“They went on to say that if we don’t sign with the union, we will never have another electrical job in Ottawa.”

Nita went further, saying an IBEW rep said to him, possibly in jest: “Let the war begin.”

By the end of that day, the couple say three of the six staff had signed cards. At this point, a dispute was ignited about the eligibility of all six staff to vote, and whether three votes actually represented a majority.

The matter was sent to the Ontario Labour Relations Board. Lawyers had to be hired. There was a hearing in Toronto. Because the three pro-union staff soon left, some work had to be subbed out.

At Arc, clearly, the wheels were falling off. The couple report being under a great deal of personal stress. In short order, their small-business dream was evaporating.

It was decided all six staff would be allowed to vote. Nita says the supervised vote occurred in April, in a Starbucks parking lot, the hood of a car serving as a desk.

It was a tie. In May, the board dismissed the application to certify.

In the wake of the experience, they’re reaching out to other small companies to form a united front seeking changes in Ontario’s labour landscape.

Finally, there is one other strange aspect to this story, a kind of David becomes Goliath.

Were unions not created to prevent large corporate interests from exploiting the honest labour of the common man?

Came the day, possibly, when the shoe was on the other foot.

Original Article

EMC News – MPP Randy Hillier plans to call on the provincial legislature to censure the McGuinty government over its handling of a program designed to encourage small business people to invest in solar power.

A July 2 announcement by the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) has indicated that citizens who have taken advantage of Ontario’s microFIT program to invest in local solar energy projects will likely receive a smaller return on their investment than what they were originally promised.

“I’m preparing a point of privilege in the House to go after McGuinty,” Hillier told the EMC this week. “I see this as a fraudulent activity.”

The Lanark, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington MPP said about 100 constituents have come into his office concerned that they will be receiving 58.8 cents per kWh of electricity generated from their solar projects rather than the 80.2 cent return originally offered under the microFIT program. “They are outraged at McGuinty breaking this commitment to them,” said Hillier. “Anybody else doing that, of course, would be charged with fraud.” He hopes to bring the matter before the legislature when it reconvenes in mid-September.

“There is some talk of a class action suit, and I’m encouraging that,” Hillier said. “We can’t accept or tolerate the government not abiding by its commitments.”

The OPA announced a 30-day consultation period, which ended Aug. 3, prior to implementation of the new pricing structure.

The microFIT program was launched last October. According to the OPA, participation in the program vastly surpassed expectations, with more than 16,000 applications received. A large majority of the applicants planned to install ground-mounted rather than roof-mounted solar panels. The OPA is proposing the new pricing category of 58.8 cents per kWh for ground-mounted projects, which, it says, “will better reflect the lower costs to install a ground-mounted solar PV (photovoltaic) project versus a rooftop project.”

In its July 2 announcement the OPA stated the new price category would “provide a price that enables future project owners to recover costs of the projects as well as earn a reasonable return on their investment over the long term.”

The OPA announcement also stated that ground-mounted microFIT applicants who already have an executed contract or have received a conditional contract offer from the OPA will receive the original price of 80.2 cents, consistent with the microFIT rules. However, “All other ground-mounted microFIT projects, including those for which an application has been submitted but have not yet received a contract or conditional contract offer, will receive the price following consultations on the proposed 58.8 cents per kWh.”

Hillier said another proposed change in the program is that solar panels can only be installed on existing buildings. “A lot of people were going to build a new barn to put solar panels on,” Hillier added. “They have over 1,000 applications for roof-top solar units to go on new barns. That just kills that.”

Hillier said many of his constituents have had to go into debt to build their solar projects, which cost an average of $80,000 each.

“Manufacturers and installers have been hurt by order cancellations, but we had no choice to ‘agree’ to the proposed low price because we can’t sell our power to anyone else,” said Lois Thomson, commenting on a July 29 EMC story on the microFIT issue. “We borrowed money to build our system on a severance of the family farm where we are going to retire. We need the money.”

Area resident Eric Scheuneman told the EMC this week that a lower price for ground-mounted solar projects “would discriminate against rural people since they are the ones who have the land and solar sites to maximize the solar benefits for Ontario.” Scheuneman also disputes the assertion that ground-mounted systems are in fact cheaper than roof-mounted installations: “roof-mount is cheaper because one already has a structure with a foundation and rigid frame to hold the solar panels which are simply connect to the roof, whereas for ground-mount one must construct a new foundation and new frame capable of withstanding wind and snow loads.”

In a letter to the OPA and the government of Ontario, Scheuneman said that when he applied online to the microFIT program in April, the program website “made firm and clear commitments to the residents of Ontario who applied to the program.”

In the letter Scheuneman went on to say: “Your deliberate stalling of processing applications and revisionism is unethical, deceitful and illegal.

It is a kick in the teeth to the many Ontario citizens who took you at your written word and enthusiastically committed to solar installations.”

Original Article

Interview courtesy of Lake 88 (www.lake88.ca).

Conservative Party and leader of the Official Opposition in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Tim Hudak paid a visit to the Hillier Creek Estate Winery Thursday evening. With Randy Hillier MPP, Lanark, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington in-tow, Hudak was greeted by a small group of party faithful including former MPP for Prince Edward, Gary Fox.

Hudak was first elected in1995 when the Tories swept to power under Mike Harris and the “Common Sense Revolution”. In 2009 Hudak was elected by his party to be its leader.

“I am pleased to be at Hillier (winery), in Hillier with (Randy) Hillier,” quipped Hudak.

Friendly and relaxed as he spoke, he quickly set to attacking the current Liberal government in Ontario. The policies for education, health care and the increase in taxes and hydro rates were all questioned. Ontario’s shift from being a “have” province that led the Canadian economy to one heavily burdened with debt were concerns noted.

“Here is the happy news my friends,” said Hudak. “There are only 440 days left until the next provincial election.”
Under Hudak’s leadership, the Progressive Conservatives have surged in the polls as of late.

“I am hearing a growing frustration from Ontario’s families,” said Hudak. “The Conservative party is putting forward ideas to create jobs, lower the tax burden on families and reduce the growing bureaucracy and putting the money back into front-line services.”
The Conservatives are promising to table a new set of policies in the near future.

“There has been an extraordinary growth in red-tape and regulation that is strangling business and chasing entrepreneurs out of the province,” he said. “We have called for a freeze on all job-killing regulations until we bring a red-tape commission to lower the overall burden on businesses to create jobs again.”

Hudak supports the development of reliable and affordable energy. He wants concentration on developing hydro electric capabilities and nuclear energy to address this need and says continuing difficulties with cross-border commerce is an item Ontario should be taking leadership on.

His comments were well received and he challenged all in attendance to sign-up five friends to the Conservative Party of Ontario.
Kemp Stewart, owner of Hillier Creek Estates, thanked Hudak and the riding association for choosing Hillier Estates for the event and presented Hudak with a bottle of their award winning wine.
“I can’t wait for you to be premier.” said Stewart.

The event was sponsored by the Prince Edward-Hastings Riding Association.

Original Article

“No one is minding the store,” remarked Hillier. “Ministers have shielded themselves from scrutiny and accountability by passing off the responsibility for their ministries’ decisions to government agencies, boards and commissions. They have delegated their power out to unelected, unaccountable bodies, leaving a vacuum in place of administrative oversight.” Although the criminal investigation is presently seeded with unknowns, what is clear is that when Ministers prefer attending photo-ops rather than tending to Ministerial business, shady business practices are given the soil in which they grow.

Hillier points the finger at the Premier. “Ultimately the Premier must be held responsible, as it is he who has authorized his Cabinet to delegate their authority to parties subservient to the Legislative Assembly. How can the public hold a government to account that has outsourced their responsibilities?”

The recent Ecotax boondoggle is only the latest example; it follows a litany and pattern of neglect and irresponsibility, such as the $1 billion eHealth scandal, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming misconduct, the spending scandal at WSIB, recent changes to the MicroFIT progam, and now OPP investigations of numerous Ministries; the list keeps growing.

“The refusal of the Premier and his Ministers to provide effective administrative oversight for their responsibilities continues to cost the taxpayers of Ontario,” added Hillier. “The store is open, but the Ministers are out to lunch.”

TORONTO — Three Ontario Crown attorneys have launched a $5-million defamation suit against provincial politicians Randy Hillier and John Yakabuski, claiming the two Conservatives harmed their reputations through a series of libellous statements.

The case stems from a workplace accident at an Eastern Ontario sawmill in 2007, where a worker broke his pelvis. Ministry of Labour investigators subsequently found the machine was inadequately guarded and the employee, Richard Hudder, insufficiently trained on its operation.

Prosecutors laid four charges against Gulick Forest Products Ltd. under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. After 16 months, at the surfacing of what they said was new information, prosecutors withdrew those charges.

A lawyer for the three government lawyers said his clients dropped the charges when the injured employee was deemed an unreliable witness.

“He changed his story,” said Tim Gleason. “And the Crown decided he was not a credible witness because he changed his story.”

That explanation didn’t sit well with Hillier and Yakabuski, who criticized the handling of the case by prosecutors, insisting the government lawyers unfairly hounded the family-run business in Palmer Rapids, Ont.

Yakabuski insisted, in the Ontario legislature, the four charges stemming from the accident — charges that carried as much as $2 million worth of penalties — were designed to scare Gulick Forest Products into pleading guilty and accepting a comparatively small $65,000 fine.

In a joint news release demanding an inquiry into the case, Hillier went one step further, accusing the unnamed Crown attorneys of breaking the law.

“It’s a problem when those who are supposed to enforce the law are the ones who break it,” Hillier said in the statement.

In court-filed documents, the three prosecutors — Linda Chen, Catherine Glaister and Daniel Kleiman — said they “have been made the subject of public odium, scandal and contempt” as a result of the publication of the accusations.

Under Canadian law, politicians’ speech inside legislatures is given blanket immunity from legal recourse. That so-called “absolute privilege” also applies to courtroom proceedings.

Yakabuski and Hillier’s lawyer Julian Porter is arguing his clients are also protected by “qualified privilege” — a less firm protection commonly associated with media reporting on official affairs.

“That will be an important argument,” Porter said in an interview. “There have been a number of western cases which emphasize the duty of a member of Parliament to ventilate issues of concern.”

The suit also names journalist Gerald Tracey, the editor and publisher of the small weekly paper the Eganville Leader. The Crown attorneys are arguing the newspaper failed in its duty to seek the prosecutors’ side of the story in reporting on Hillier’s and Yakabuski’s allegations.

Hillier said the $5-million lawsuit is “ludicrous.”

“I don’t believe they’ve been harmed whatsoever. They will have to demonstrate loss of income,” he said.

“I’m confident it will be a very, very dark day in our country when members of Parliament are not allowed to raise questions when there are clear allegations of inappropriate conduct,” Hillier said.

Original Article

The new eco-fees, introduced on the same day as the HST, are charged on a range of items. While they are ostensibly to pay for recycling, there is no indication that this is where the fees are actually being spent. Moreover, the fees were put into place with no prior announcement, notification to MPPs or the public causing mass confusion at retailers who had not been instructed on how to implement the secretive measure. Reports have begun pouring in from across the province of confused retailers & manufacturers over-charging customers due to a lack of understanding of the fees.

“This is what happens when a government tries to pass the buck. Taxation is a responsibility of the provincial government. It’s not something Dalton McGuinty can just ‘give away’,” said Hillier. “It’s become clear that McGuinty is creating a parallel government hidden from our view, that is unelected, unaccountable and with the power to tax without representation.”

The PC Party, under the leadership of Tim Hudak, has pledged to repeal the harmful new eco-fees once elected, and has called on the auditor general to immediately conduct an audit of Stewardship Ontario.
“Upon our return to the legislature, I’ll be ensuring that Dalton McGuinty’s shameful behaviour towards the taxpayers of Ontario and the democratically elected legislature is held to be just that – in contempt,” said Hillier.

The facts are clear when the political spin is replaced by reasoned evaluation. The truth is that Dalton McGuinty arbitrarily suspended and abrogated our most sacred civil liberties — our freedoms and privacy — without discussion, debate or public awareness. The premier then justified this abuse of power by asserting that we needed law and order instead.

Instead of a choosing a more controlled and less populated location that would not be such a powerful magnet for the few juvenile anarchists, Stephen Harper agreed to host the G20 in a location that he had to have known would draw the greatest opposition and most violent response, therefore justifying an outrageous expenditure of public dollars and creating an army of police equipped with a siege mentality.

Both the provincial and federal governments now attempt to shirk responsibility for their actions by shifting blame to one another and to the police, who were acting under political orders. McGuinty refuses to apologize or call for an independent public inquiry. Harper hides behind the provincial jurisdiction of policing, even though it was his government that contracted their services on behalf of all Canadians.

They both use the common theme that upholding law and order required usurping our civil liberties. Any elementary school student knows these are not mutually exclusive — in fact, they are wholly interdependent. As numerous failed dictatorships have proven, you cannot have law and order without civil liberties.

Can you imagine a society of law and order that does not respect the inherent civil liberties and freedom of mobility, association and assembly? What is law and order if you can be arrested and detained arbitrarily without reasonable and probable grounds? This is what happened on a large scale in Toronto. Stalin and Mao most assuredly would have agreed with McGuinty’s vision and views, that due process and evidentiary rules are optional. But law and order without civil liberties is the hallmark of despotism and tyranny, and are the stock in trade of injustice and evil.

Although there have been times of national crisis when civil liberties have been suspended, it has only ever occurred after a full and thoughtful debate — never in secrecy. It has happened when our country has been at war and our way of life under real threat. It has happened when civil unrest in Quebec led to bombings and the kidnapping and murder of public leaders; however, it was debated and voted upon with the public’s full knowledge of the War Measures Act.

The G20 has resulted in the largest mass arrest in our history of more than 1,000 Canadian citizens. But according to McGuinty, this startling fact does not justify or merit an inquiry. Over 700 of these people were detained, their freedom removed, and eventually released without charge, but this does not warrant public scrutiny either. The largest ever mobilization of Canadian police in our history does not even deserve an open public review. More than $1 billion spent and we are supposed to be accepting and grateful.

Freedom is secondary only to the very life we breathe, freedom is the most essential ingredient of humanity — to deprive one of his freedom is to suffocate our soul and nature. This must never be done arbitrary and only in times of great crisis.

McGuinty and Harper set the stage, created the environment and controlled the unfolding of these events, and together they have lowered the threshold of protecting our civil liberties. No longer are our freedoms and liberties only in peril during times of war or a direct threat upon our democratic institutions. They are now in peril every day we have political leaders such as this.

Randy Hillier, MPP
Lanark, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington

Original Article

“It’s unconscionable to lure people with green promises into an intentional financial trap, and then to pull the rug out from under them. The OPA’s announcement on July 2 effectively defrauds nearly 15000 Ontario citizens, many who have invested tens of thousands of dollars and huge amounts of time and energy,” said Hillier. “Dalton McGuinty has perpetrated the single greatest fraud in Ontario’s history on the people of Ontario.”

The Micro-FIT program originally made the commitment of paying out $0.802/kWh for ground mount solar projects, which has been reduced to $0.588/kWh. Originally the program stated that roof mount solar projects could be on existing or newly constructed buildings; the OPA now says only mounts on existing buildings will be accepted. The OPA has suspended about 10,000 applications, at the behest of the minister.

“At the time that this legislation was introduced, we made clear to the government that it was untenable. However, they chose to go ahead, and in doing so made a commitment to people. They’re breaking their promises, yet again,” said Hillier.

“In McGuinty’s rush to pump up his chest to the environmentalist lobby, he has boastfully doled out billions to major friends like Samsung and deceived the people of Ontario,” said Hillier. “Dalton McGuinty’s ‘green agenda’ has become nothing but a Ponzi scheme, with riches for his friends and a shakedown of new taxes, fees and lies for the people of Ontario.”

“It’s time to end McGuinty’s green deceit.”