John LaForet Strikes Back

...launches a "strategy group", pays for a poll that shows the Ontario Libs in rough shape.  Once President of Wind Concerns Ontario, even further back LaForet was active in the Ontario Liberal Party, with whom he had a spectacular (and, frankly, rather bizarre) falling out.

Wind Concerns Busted!

A prominent anti-wind-power group is under fire amid accusations it broke election financing by running a negative advertising campaign against Liberal candidates last fall.

[...]

They say Wind Concerns Ontario failed to comply with the Election Finance Act by allegedly spending over the $500 threshold on political advertising during the provincial campaign without registering as a third party.

MacDonald points to billboards that said, “Hudak In Turbines Out,” and a pro-Progressive Conservative speaking tour of 24 ridings carried out by the grassroots anti-wind group.

Ex WCO John Laforet denies that the group put up the billboards.  Here's one of them:

Just popped up there all by themselves, I guess. 

More on the rise and fall of Wind Concerns Ontario (because the group has pretty much shut down since the election) can be found here.  In particular, an account of their possible issues with Elections Ontario can be found here.

Interesting Timing

 The PWU winds up its stealth social media campaign--employing Flogs and fake citizens--against the Green Energy Act, and a week later John LaForet resigns as president of Wind Concerns Ontario.

Enviralment is a Flog For PWU (Power Workers Union)

That is, a fake Blog used as a sales tool, in this case  by the Ontario Power Workers Union to trash Dalton McGuinty's Green Energy Act:

A bold labour union offensive targeting the environmental policies of the Ontario government is being driven largely by a sophisticated marketing campaign that has planted comments to "create online conversations" promoting coal, nuclear and other power options.

The marketing has involved professional bloggers working for M THIRTY, a Toronto-based communications firm, who actively use social media websites such as Facebook or Twitter to simulate or kick-start online conversations with a consistent message promoting the views of their clients.

In this case, the Ontario Power Workers' Union bankrolled the campaign...

A little further down the article mentions the blog Enviralment as being part of the campaign:

She also posted a link to a blog called "Enviralment" — also produced by M THIRTY — that cast
doubts about the actions of the McGuinty government in Ontario. "What's the deal with this?" she asked, posting a link to the blog post: "McGuinty Scraps Offshore Wind Projects in Ontario."

And then a little later down:

[The messages] were spread on social media and shared on M THIRTY blogs with green-sounding names such as "Enviralment" and "Envirogy."

Enviralment can be found here.  Unfortunately, it can also be found here, on the Progressive Bloggers blogroll.  I would humbly suggest that ProgBlog owners have it removed: the folks behind it are shills for the PWU.

Secondly, I've written a couple of  times about my suspicions re John LaForet's Wind Concerns Ontario group and its possible ties to the power workers.  Well, there are numerous connections between WCO and the astroturf campaign described above: a quick look at the Enviralment page, for example,  shows how heavily it has promoted WCO over the past couple of years, for example here and here.  And Envirogy, another flog associated with the PWU effort, is on the WCO blogroll.  Also, the marketing group behind the PWU campaign, M Thirty, employs a gentleman/woman employing the pseud "Vic De Zen" who occasionally posts to the Wind Concerns Facebook page.

In any case, a real scuzzy effort by the PWU.  It would be nice to know if Andrea Horwath supports it.

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.

Ready For Martyrdom

I recognize me speaking out on this likely makes the threat of Liberal Caucus Services Bureau’s illegal use of public resources against me, should I seek public office, all the more likely...

But one day you'll show them, John. You'll show them all.

(By the way, I like jokes about hair-gel)