Ontario Premier Breaks Promise On Closing Coal Plants, Blames Unnamed Advisers - G&M [View All]

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TORONTO -- Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is blaming unidentified advisers for his government's inability to keep its promises to close the province's coal-burning power plants. Mr. McGuinty conceded yesterday that the smokestacks from the coal plants likely will not disappear until 2014 -- seven years later than he promised during the last election campaign. But he said he relied on advisers in making that pledge.

"Be careful about the advice you get from experts," he told reporters when asked if there were any lessons to be learned from such a humbling retreat. A spokesman in Mr. McGuinty's office declined to identify who came up with the idea that the province could shut its five coal plants, which at that time supplied about 25 per cent of the province's electricity, by that date.

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Jack Gibbons, an anti-coal lobbyist and chairman of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, said the idea didn't come from him. "Our target date was 2010 or sooner, so the 2007 date was generated by him or someone in the Liberal Party," Mr. Gibbons said in an interview.

A source familiar with the 2003 election campaign described Mr. McGuinty as a "true believer" in wanting to replace the pollution-spewing coal plants with cleaner sources of electricity as soon as possible. But he said there was not much in the way of analysis to back up that plan.

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20061116.ONTCOAL16/TPStory/Environment