The NDP: Doing It Again

...whenever push comes to shove, provincially in the last B.C. election,and federally in 2008, they've willing to toss aside whatever green convictions they might lay claim to for a few cheap political points. This time, its Peter Kormos siding with Wind Concerns Ontario:

Kormos attended a meeting in Wainfleet Saturday, held to discuss concerns about wind turbines planned for Wainfleet.

Neither Kormos nor Welland's federal New Democratic Party MP Malcolm Allen spoke during the meeting attended by nearly 200 people. But Kormos said information provided at the meeting -- by Skydive Burnaby owners Mike and Tara Pitt, by John LaForet from lobby group Wind Concerns Ontario and by other speakers -- was consistent with what the NDP has concluded about ongoing installation of industrial wind turbines across Ontario.

A couple of things are going on here. The Pitts drop their clients on the other side of proposed turbine, and you can see their being worried that one of these clients might wind up rather finely chopped in the turbine blades; on the other hand, the developer does seem to have attempted a response to their concerns.

And then there's John Laforet of Wind Concerns Ontario, a Scarborough boy whose been dragging his small band of supporters around the province, playing to NIMBYs and lecturing the locals on local democracy. Bucket's has written of the astro-turfy nature of WCO, and so has The Disaffected Lib, at somewhat greater length. There's been some media coverage of the "anger" in rural Ontario over these turbines, but such stories seem over-blown. At least, the only polling I've seen on the issue (admittedly from 2009) demonstrated overwhelming support for industrial wind-farms, both inside the GTA and beyond its boundaries. So I suspect the anger noted does not extend much past whatever room the WCO travelling show is performing in at the time.

In any case, I don't see this one ending too well for Kormos and the provincial NDP. In B.C. their attack on Gordon Campbell's carbon tax back-fired horribly, splitting the enviro movement and setting back their campaign in its early stages. I don't see how Kormos and Co. can really imagine that stealing ideas from Tim Hudak will shore up their support her in Ontario.

PS. WCO and other groups of like nature tend to rely heavily on the "peer reviewed" research of Nina Pierpoint. What "peer review" means in this instance is that her husband proof-read her self-published manuscripts.