Imagine this scenario: You live in a democratic society. You are informed by an electrical corporation that there is a critical transmission infrastructure coming through your backyard that will certainly affect your life financially, affect how you do your business, and perhaps even affect your health. You are informed that Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) has decided that this critical infrastructure is absolutely essential for Alberta to have enough power. You are informed that neither a needs assessment nor a cost analysis is required.
You are informed that the present Progresssive Conservative caucus knows best as to what Alberta’s electrical needs are and that they have designed Bill 50 to fast track the multi-billion transmission system upgrade. You are further informed that this bill gives you absolutely no say as a tax-paying Alberta citizen, except for where these 40-meter high DC towers will be placed.
You naturally think that since you personally do not want this line near you, that you will find another route and send the corporation down the road to a place which is less populated and not beside you. But no matter where this line is proposed, there are people with homes, people with development plans, and people who care about their future and their children’s future.” So the saga continues.
We, in the Vegreville Area Landowners Transmission-Line Opposition Association (VALTOA), have spent one year trying to research and understand AESO, Bill 50, ATCO and the Alberta Utilities Commission. Once again, we are being inundated with land men calling our homes during spring seeding and wanting to alter their initial preferred Eastern route with one that is different from the alternative that they initially proposed. This saga has become one where neighbour is being pitted against neighbour, and family member against family member. People are being forced to show malice and a lack of concern towards their neighbours using the “not in my backyard approach.”
So our question to our present premier would be: “Is this the legacy that you planned to leave for Alberta? Did you envision a countryside of family and neighbours in disharmony and discontentment? Did you want to affect peoples’ day to day lives with this emotional turmoil of what you appear to call progress? Do you have any idea how much time and energy we have utilized to learn about this project and its ramifications, up and beyond what we normally do as working Albertans? Do you know what it feels like to have no recourse because of Bill 50 and how it has actually affected us physically and emotionally?”
Would it not be a logical answer to step back and give Alberta citizens a comprehensive public evaluation of all viable options to meet the need for reliable power for our great province? There are other technically, environmentally, and socially acceptable alternatives which could perhaps be developed at a lower cost. We need to have a comprehensive analysis of all alternatives including this mega project. We, as a group, implore the present government to practice democracy and to repeal Bill 50 and to place an immediate moratorium on the proposed critical infrastructures in both the Eastern and Western corridors. Future generations will ultimately thank you for your vision and your courage to listen to the people of Alberta. It is never too late.
As Plato once stated: “Wisdom is knowledge about good, and the courage to act accordingly.”
Judy Semotiuk
