City of Thorold Votes YES – Again and Again – for Building a Healthy Community

The Niagara, Ontario Municipality’ Council  Deserves the Nation-Wide Praise it is Getting for  Responding with a Unanimous NO to Proposed Gas-Fired Energy Plant in its Community and the City Should Serve as a Role Model for other Municipalities across the Country

A News Commentary by Doug Draper

Posted September 21^st, 2023 on Niagara At Large

Those who have followed any of my writing as a journalist in Niagara, Ontario over however number of decades, may know that I am hardly the go-to guy when it comes to singing praises for governments on any number of issues.

Yet I cannot help but sing some praise for Mayor Terry Ugulini and his Council in the Niagara, Ontario City of Thorold – a municipality I happen to live in – for voting No this past September 19^th to a proposed gas-fired power plant in the municipality – a proposal that was driven by the wrong-headed and dangerous policies of Ontario’s Ford government to continue opting for burning carbon fuels that wreak havoc on our climate over renewable energies.

For responding with a unanimous thumbs down to this proposal, Ugulini and his council sent a clear message to other municipalities and to other levels of government, provincially and federally, that in an age of extreme heat warnings, drought, flooding, destructive wildfires and wind storms related to climate change, we have to make the shift, as soon as possible from oil and gas to more renewable energy sources.

Of course, it wasn’t just the council that played a key role in defeating this proposal.

There was a good deal of passionate and thoughtful engagement from individual citizens and from dedicated Niagara-based citizens groups like 30by50 Niagara and Biodiversity and Climate Action Niagara (this one a coalition of many citizen groups across the region).

These citizens contacted members of Thorold’s council in the days leading up to the meeting with their concerns about the gas plant plan and they packed the city council chambers and addressed the council as delegations on the evening of the meeting.

And for the most part, those of us in Thorold who bother to vote in municipal elections, put some thought into voting for candidates who at least promise to build a healthier, from livable and sustainable community for present and future generations.

“This process tonight shows how democracy works,” said Thorold’s mayor at the end of the September 19^th meeting that left the gas plant plan out of here.

And how right the mayor is! And how great that at a time in our history that too much political debate has become ugly, that this issue was addressed, by all sides, in such a civil way.

As a long-time resident of Thorold, I am proud to say that this is far from the only example of this municipality and its residents and citizens in other parts of Niagara working together to build both an environmentally and economically sustainable community.

Some three to four decades ago, a Thorold council at the time did something few municipal councils in Ontario have done before or since. It purchased a large tract of scenic land along the northern shores of Lake Gibson from land owners perched to build houses on it and turned it into a conservaton park named after local icon Mel Swart, who was a longtime MPP in Niagara and a strong advocate for preserving green places.

The Mel Swart Lake Gibson Conservation Park remains a popular spot for hikers to this day with its native vegetation, a boardwalk along a lake inhabited by ducks, geese and swans, and gardens created by indigenous peoples.

In partnership with long-time heritage advocates like Pamela Minns and locally owned businesses like Henderson’s Pharmacy, the city has also been recognized nationally for revitalizing its downtown core and nearby buildings like its historic fire hall and a Keefer Mill converted for residential use.

The city has also done an impressive job of infilling with residential development near its urban core and on old industrial brownfields.

More recently, Mayor Ugulini and elected representatives who served on the city’s council during the last term voted to press a developer to rebuild a “frog pond” it had bulldozed over in the process of preparing adjacent land for development.

The developer complied and Carla Carlson, who had worked to save the frog pond near her old family home for decades, and other citizens have been working with the city and developer to keep this place natural for generations to come.

And now there is the unanimous decision by the Thorold council to reject a proposal to build a gas-fired energy plant in the municipality.

Wouldn’t it be great if Thorold could now be approached by private companies who would build and install solar panels and other renewable energy systems here.

Thorold’s city council certainly deserves all of the thanks it is receiving from environmental groups across Ontario and Canada for continuing to opt for environmentally sustainable development by turning down this gas plant plan.

• Doug Draper, Niagara At Large

To watch the Thorold City Council meeting where the gas plant was rejected, click on –

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