Gas power divides Ontario cities as province pushes expansion

When lifelong Thorold resident Don Morley vividly described seeing harmful pollutants drift through the air he breathes daily, his impassioned plea to reject a nearby gas plant expansion echoed concerns cropping up in other Ontario municipalities.

Ontario insists it still needs gas-fired electricity as part of its future mix, despite incoming federal regulations to get Canada’s electricity grid to net-zero emissions by 2035. But some municipalities are refusing to take on additional gas generation because of concerns about climate change and health.

At the Thorold town council meeting, Morley urged councillors to sink a pitch by Toronto-based power producer Northland Power to build a new 200MW power plant to handle peak demand near the existing Thorold Generating Station about 130 kilometres west of Toronto, near Niagara Falls.

“Being a neighbour to the plant, I can't begin to express the concern I have for the particulates that are currently falling, that are heavier than air, that you can not only see but feel,” Morley said at the meeting on Sept. 19, 2023. 

Along with planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, burning gas to generate electricity releases harmful pollutants into the air we breathe and can increase risk of cancer, asthma and other ailments. 

Municipalities can veto electricity generation projects proposed within their boundaries, and a handful — including Halton Hills, Kingston, Loyalist Township and Thorold — have already signalled they aren’t interested in gas expansion. 

Morley’s speech about ever-present air pollution near the existing gas plant got through to even the councillors who weren’t swayed by the plant’s impact on climate change, said Mark Freeman who organized against the expansion. When it came time to vote, Thorold town council voted unanimously to reject the project.

Whether due to concerns over health, climate or the dubious financial decision to invest in fossil fuel infrastructure when all the science indicates the world needs to phase it out, gas-fired generation is facing scrutiny from residents as gas proposals force municipalities to take a stance.

Last fall, the Loyalist Township council turfed a request from the Electricity System Operator (IESO) asking for “blanket support” for new electricity projects, including Kingston CoGen’s proposal to build a new 100-megawatt (MW) gas-fired power plant in Bath, Ontario.

The Nov. 27 council meeting was “totally packed,” Aric McBay, a community organizer in the area, told Canada’s National Observer in a phone interview. 

“Some of the councillors told me that it was the issue that they had seen the biggest public response on, biggest public engagement on, of any issue in their term, to date,” said McBay, a campaigner with the Providence Centre for Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation. 

All but one Loyalist Township councillor voted against the IESO’s request. However, companies are still free to pitch future proposals to Loyalist Township.

Kingston, a city about 20 kilometres from Loyalist Township, also took a stronger stance against fossil fuels when it excluded gas generation from a resolution granting broad support for wind, solar and biogas projects. 

Halton Hills town council rejected Atura's power plant expansion proposal last December, despite the company’s offer of nearly $3.5 million over 12 years to the Halton Hills Community Benefit Fund.

The province is currently fielding proposals for all types of electricity generation and capacity because demand is forecasted to increase 75 per cent by 2050, according to the IESO. 

Ontario bills gas plants as essential for grid reliability — ministers and the IESO refer to it as an “insurance policy.” Some electricity sources, like wind and solar, ebb and flow depending on the time of day, whereas gas and nuclear plants can run around the clock. However, with the Pickering nuclear station scheduled to temporarily shut some of its reactors for refurbishment in 2026, the share of nuclear power will decline so other power sources must be developed. Ontario's new energy minister, Stephen Lecce, panned opposition to natural gas as “ideological,” while preaching the province’s “all of the above” approach to electricity generation in a July press conference.

In a recent round of procurement, the IESO wanted to secure 1,500 MW of gas-fired generation but came up short with only 1,010 MW. It then opened up a call for 2,000 MW of electricity from wind, solar and biomass, but later changed the terms to be “technology agnostic,” opening the door to more gas proposals. 

Environmental groups condemned the decision. “If we had a fair and open and transparent competitive process,” wind and solar are so cheap they would almost always out-compete gas, Keith Brooks, executive director of Environmental Defence said in an interview with Canada’s National Observer. 

But there are signs the IESO are tilting things in favour of fossil fuels, Brooks said.

“It looks as though they're interested in procuring even more gas now, and in fact, offering contracts for gas plants that go out till 2051 and also giving a preferential treatment to gas plants over batteries on the capacity side,” Brooks.

He said the IESO is hoping the federal clean electricity regulations will some day disappear.

None of three gas expansion projects — in Napanee, St. Clair Township or Windsor — will open before the federal 2025 clean electricity deadline, he added. 

“The province even knows this … the minister directed the IESO to include a clause in the contracts that says, if your gas plant can't operate anymore because of federal climate rules, that we'll pay you anyway.”

Contracts from the first round of gas plant procurement ensure the province will pay the companies until 2040 — five years after the clean electricity regulations crack down on gas plants that have not taken steps to reduce pollution, like carbon capture. The next round of procurement includes some similar assurances. That incensed some rural residents of Loyalist Township, according to Aric McBay, a local organizer. 

People did not take kindly to the prospect of giving public subsidies “to fossil fuel companies for doing essentially nothing,” McBay said. 

However, not all Ontario municipalities have opposed taking on more gas-fired power generation. Those in support of expansion point to the province’s growing demand for electricity and are convinced that gas is needed for baseload power. They are also reassured by the IESO’s promise that the gas plants will only run when electricity demand is high and can't be met by other means. But a Star investigation published last fall, revealed gas plant use is on the rise. The province’s 12 biggest gas plants ran on average more than 12 hours a day in 2023, with some plants averaging close to 20 hours per day in the summer.

Napanee rubber stamped Atura Power’s proposal to add another turbine to its gas generating station. As part of the deal, Atura (a subsidiary of Ontario Power Generation) agreed to contribute $4.8 million to Napanee's community benefit fund.

At the meeting on Nov. 28, 2023, Coun. Dave Pinnell said he believes there’s a near-term need for more power than wind and solar can provide. 

Windsor and St. Clair Township also accepted contracts for new gas generation.

A report tabled by Windsor city council on Jan. 16, 2023 warned the region could lose  economic investments if electricity supply can’t meet demand. The report recommended supporting Capital Power’s pitch to build two gas-fired turbines at the East Windsor Co-generation facility to add 100MW of capacity.

“If it doesn't come to Windsor, they can contract with anybody else,” Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens said in the Jan. 16 committee meeting. He added that there’s a “transmission bottleneck” in the region that will eventually require upgrades to transmission lines or increased power generation to meet Windsor’s needs. 

Speakers at Windsor’s meeting cited economic, health and climate concerns, but councillors ultimately voted 8-2 in favour of Capital Power’s proposal to boost its existing generating capacity with two new gas turbines. The vote met with boos from the room.

Despite the IESO’s instruction that municipalities get the final say on power projects, some gas expansions are going forward without the municipality’s blessing. Ontario Power Generation is still pushing to increase generation at the Portlands gas plant, located on Toronto’s waterfront despite a City of Toronto resolution passed on May 10, 2023, opposing “any new power generation proposal involving increased burning of fossil fuels, including natural gas.”

The City of Toronto has emphatically refused but the province is “stomping all over the city's autonomy,” Councilor Dianne Saxe told Canada’s National Observer in a phone interview. Most recently, she called out Lecce at the annual meeting of the Association of Ontario Municipalities in August. 

“I stood up and I said, ‘We do not consent. Will you comply with our clearly expressed desire? I mean, you just assured everybody here that you listen to municipalities. Will you listen to City of Toronto?’” Saxe said. “And they said, ‘No.’”

The province is “clearly very determined to push through gas projects,” she said.

Lecce's office did not directly respond to questions about why municipal support is not required for the Portlands Energy Centre capacity upgrades.

Despite victories in places like Thorold, it feels like “we're treading water when we need to be swimming fast in the other direction,” said Mark Freeman, a local Thorold activist.

Because a couple cities signed up for more gas, “all we did was slow down the provincial government's plans,” Freeman said.

Canada needs huge change at the municipal and provincial levels to make climate progress because that’s where the jurisdiction rests over housing, transportation, natural resources, Freeman said, adding it’s easier to affect change at a municipal level.

The fruits of local organizing were evident in places like Loyalist Township and Kingston, McBay said, describing it as “democracy in action.”

Councillors faced a tough decision, with provincial authorities like the IESO arguing for more gas generation, he said.

“But then, they actually listened to experts. They listened to people who were independently knowledgeable about these issues, and they listened to their own constituents … that's how democracy is supposed to work,” McBay said.

He believes grassroots organizing is the key to winning these battles, particularly in chronically-underresourced rural areas.

“We're going to have to continue to struggle, but I think that the provincial government is going to start hitting walls.”

— With files from Matin Sarfraz

Natasha Bulowski / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer