When asked, Palmer said he was a party to the appeal against the Enbridge Wind development in Kincardine in 2007.
"I was an appellant," said Palmer. "I was one of 37, three of which maintained full party status, while the rest were represented by one person."
"Many of those people became members of Wind Concerns Ontario?" asked Meuleman.
So the WCO core was about three dozen people. This is interesting in light of the public response to the Grand Valley Wind Farms Inc. project in East Luther Grand Valley, back in 2012:
A total of 89 comments were received in response to this Environmental Registry notice. Forty-eight responses were form letters which objected to allowing a private developer to harm species at risk and questioned how such authorizations can be justified under the ESA.
As I noted at the time, it looks like the WCO provided that form-letter. Looks like pretty much their entire membership recopied that letter.
So: several dozen of the committed who can rally a couple of hundred to their big events. That's the extent of it, it seems.
3 comments:
That sounds about right to me. The hardcore is a very small group.
In the recent `rolling roadblock` stunt that the wind energy opponents staged on Hwy 402 near London, Ontario, they were able to rally between 100 and 150 vehicles. I can`t believe that they were carpooling, so probably less than 200 participants for an event that was widely publicized days in advance. With that poor a showing it is no wonder that the 2013 was a record year for wind development in Ontario. 2014 is looking good too!
Perhaps no different than the rent-a-mobs that tour the country to protest stuff like Line 9, N Gateway, Keystone etc. etc.
By the way, I was at the 402 protest and there was plenty of those with 2 or more in each vehicle, including the farm equipment. The 300# likely comes from the rally at Strathroy at the end of the "rolling roadblock". At that point the farmers headed back home, and the heavy rain did put a damper on the event.
Like any protest movement, there are the "hard-core" that represent likely 5-10 % of the whole. This particular protest was in SW Ont and didn't have many from eastern or northern Ont. Something to note, is that there are over 70 municipalities that have declared themselves "Not a Willing Host" that does span Ont and has politicians paying attention.
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