Power Plant Development

A residents’ group is fuming because a controversial power plant isn’t on the list of key issues Mississauga City Council plans to present to the provincial government after this fall’s election.

The fallout from two scrapped power plants is, however, mentioned on the list approved at a Wednesday meeting.

Top items mentioned include increased funding for transit and infrastructure and more funding for post-secondary education.

The list also seeks guarantees no power plant will be built on the eastern Mississauga waterfront, where the Lakeview coal-fired generating station once served as the GTA’s single biggest air polluter.

But it makes no mention of a power plant near Sherway Gardens mall for which the city recently issued a building permit — as it was obliged to do after being overruled in a 2007 decision by the Ontario Municipal Board. The permit allows Eastern Power Ltd. to build a 280-megawatt gas-fired plant on the Mississauga-Toronto border.

“I am baffled that the city, either deliberately or through oversight, has neglected to make this an election issue, officially, for Mississauga,” said Tony Jones, chair of ChiP (Concerned Homeowners for Intelligent Power), which represents about 14,000 homeowners in Mississauga and Etobicoke.

After residents mobilized last month, vowing to make the issue their main focus during the election, the province said it would review its 2008 approval.

Councillor Jim Tovey, who represents the ward where the Eastern plant is to be built, took full responsibility for not including the issue on the city’s wish list.

“We’ll certainly be pushing the provincial government on the issue,” he told the Star after Wednesday’s meeting. “It’s my mistake” it wasn’t put on the approved report, he said.

Tovey, a critic of such plants in urban areas, said it’s simply “common sense” that the air over the area is even worse than that of the Clarkson airshed, which a Ministry of Environment task force said last year can’t handle increased emissions. The neighbourhood is upwind of industries and near a cluster of major highways.

Tovey pointed out that he personally brought forward, and saw passed, two council motions recognizing that the plant should not be built.

But Jones says those are just empty words. “This is the topic of the election for thousands of people who don’t want a gas power plant next to homes, a hospital schools and a watershed (Etobicoke Creek),” he said.

BY-ELECTION SET

Mississauga City Council has approved a by-election for Ward 5 to replace former councillor Eve Adams, who vacated the seat after winning the Mississauga-Brampton South riding for the Conservatives in the federal election.

The by-election will be held Monday, Sept. 19, with advance voting Sept. 10 and 11.

The date was picked to give enough time between the end of vacation season and the provincial contest in October. It is expected to cost about $440,000. Nominations will be open between July 6 and Aug. 5, with the election period to start after that.