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A 4 - The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday June 25, 2003 Byers gets federal Tory nod The Federal Progressive Conser vative Association of Oakville has nom inated Rick Byers as its candidate for the next federal election. Byers, who was also the federal PC candidate in 2000, ran unopposed dur ing last Tuesday's nomination meeting. "I believe we need a government in Ottawa that addresses the issues that matter to the people of Oakville," said Byers. "I am running to provide the responsive and energetic representation that our Community and Canada truly needs." Byers, 44. a chartered account, is managing director and group head of government investment banking at BMO Nesbitt Bums. He holds an MBA from the University of Ottawa. Prior to joining the firm, Byers spent four years as an advisor to the federal Minister of Finance. Byers -- a married father of three boys -- currently serves on the board of directors of Halton Helping Hands, the Toronto Board of Trade and Trinity College School. He and his family have resided in Oakville since 1991. Hydro eyes 6,000 `green' customers E n e r g y p a c t p ilo t p r o g r a m By Howard Mozel OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF is e n v ir o n m e n ta lly fr ie n d ly According to Bystrin, OHESI is planning to build a landfill gas recovery power plant at Halton Region's Waste Management Site on Hwy. 25 in Milton, hopefully by summer 2004. If enough pacts are purchased, OHESI will divert this income stream to building the plant. Largely methane, the vapour pro duced by decomposition which is cur rently vented to the atmosphere is a potent greenhouse gas as combustible as natural gas. Properly collected and burned, the system works toward a cleaner environment in two ways. First, it corrals gas going into the atmosphere anyway and second, it will reduce the town's reliance -- as many as 3,000 Oakville households -- on dirtier forms of energy production. If all goes well, Bystrin said Oakville Hydro could spread its expertise to other interested utilities. Goodm an Air Conditioning & Heating C E N TR A L A IR In s t a lle d From 1 3 9 9 °°i,,s · 5 year warranty on 10 seer, · Liquidline filter drier 10 year warranty on 12,13,14 seer. · Goodman is the second largest Heating · Lowered metal guard protects and Air Conditioning Manufacturer coil from damage in North America . Offer expires July 15,2003. DOWNSVIEW DECOR CENTRE \ jhnona, ROOM AIR A 4 1 6 -6 7 5 -6 2 1 5 9 Q 5 -7 9 4 -1 4 8 9 J W hile Oakville Hydro Energy Services' Green Light Pact program is slowly gaining converts, the man over seeing the initiative remains optimistic it will flourish. "We have 60 custom ers," said Oakville Hydro Corporation President and CEO Alex Bystrin at a recent M ayor's Business Breakfast. "We should have 6,000 customers." To underscore his point, Bystrin challenged those in attendance to sign up for the "green power" option and do what they can with their businesses to help maintain a cleaner environment. After all, he said, each pact removes half a ton of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. "Please consider us," Bystrin added. This pilot program offers everyone in Ontario the opportunity to contribute to a cleaner environment by helping pay for the generation of electricity from renewable energy sources instead of from fossil fuel burning power plants, which harm the environment. It works this way: for every $60 (plus tax) full Green Light Pact sold, OHESI will arrange to have electricity generated from environmentally-friendly EcoLogo certified renewable energy sources. This, Bystrin, offers individuals the option to personally decide that specific amounts of electricity will be produced from renewable energy sources and injected into Ontario's electricity grid. A full Green Light Pact and is equiv alent to 660 kilowatt-hours of green power being produced and injected into the Ontario electricity grid, helping to reduce the need to generate that amount of electricity by conventional means. This is comparable to three weeks of electricity used by a typical home, and benefits the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Half Green Light Pacts are also available at $30 e^ch plus tax, resulting in 330 kilowatthours of green power being generated. The 60 pacts registered so far equal approximately 39,000 kilowatt-hours. Bystrin said the program is a long term undertaking from Oakville Hydro and is not the flavour of the day. "We are committed to bringing green power to Oakville," he added. Green power refers to low environ mental impact electricity generated from renewable energy sources and technologies, such as low-impact hydro, wind power, biomass (burning organic material), landfill gas recovery and solar facilities. Using only EcoLogo certified or equivalent genera tion facilities helps ensure that environ mentally friendly Green Power meets or exceeds the strictest industry and gov ernment performance standards. Woodlots, transportation key to Region's Official Plan By Jason Misner S P E C IA L T O T H E BEAVER before you buy Your choice 999" Kenmore* 21.7-cu. ft. side-by-side fridge 3 'spillproof' cantilevered glass shelves. M!2!2. Sears reg. 1349.99. Also available in Bisque save s350 Kenmore 18.5-cu. ft. fridge with bottom freezer 4 half-width cantilevered glass shelves. #63822. Sears reg. 1199.99. save $200 m £ St -- V V IT > 1 JL. f f f - on . m -- % Largest selection of major appliances in Canada ITM · V/e service what we se ll7 · Ask about our Price Match Guarantee on national brand major appliances; details in store · Satisfaction guaranteed or money refunded · i r F i i o . No Money Down. No Deferral Fee. 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Sun . 1 1 am-5 pm. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ NE065M303 ©2003. Sears Canada Inc. Halton is hoping to position itself as a municipality more dependent on tran sit. more protective of its woodlots and with an adequate stock of affordable housing. Ambitious goals, perhaps, but they're among the dozens of directives that were approved last week by the Region's plan ning and public works committee, and are part of the exhaustive process known as the Official Plan (OP) review. OPs must be reviewed every five years. It still must be ratified at regional council today (Wednesday). From that point, staff would start adding "legal teeth" to the directives for more defini tion. Part of that process would require additional public input over the next few months, said Halton's Director of Planning and Transportation Jane Clohecy. "Staff have been given direction and will prepare an amendment (to the OP)," she said. "We'll be putting words around the directions. There'll be more public meetings." OPs are the blueprints of a municipal ity's growth and they set out, among other things, broad initiatives such as land uses, protecting the urban boundary and agricultural land and forest manage ment. The Region has received more than 300 pages of comments from the public, environmental groups, local business people, the agricultural community and others in regard to the OP review that started last year. The Region also took the unusual step and hired Ispos-Ried, a major polling firm, to elicit public input about the kind of Halton they want to see develop. Planning officials used them to help craft the recommended OP directives. Clohecy said some key drivers in this recent OP review included woodlot pro tection, the promotion of better transit and building affordable housing. While that is not to say there aren't directives in the current OP that try to achieve those goals, but the point of the review is to strengthen and enhance them. The woodlot directives contain a number of provisions. Among them is a stronger tree-cutting bylaw, which hasn't been updated in 30 years, Clohecy said. "There are much higher fines, with enhanced abilities through the new Municipal Act," she said of the bylaw. It also requires that any person who wants to alter a woodlot that's a half hectare or more in size must apply to the Region for a permit. The OP recommendation calls for a transit vision plan, part of which refers to linking inter-regional bus systems. Each municipality in Halton offers its own form of local bus service. "The direction is we need to have nodes and corridors (for the linkages) but where they'll be located is the issue," Clohecy said. As for affordable housing, the OP calls for incentives for developers to build affordable housing. One aspect of the OP review Clohecy said she's happy with is the decision to maintain the urban boundary. Since developers won't have new large areas of land to work with, they'll have to build more medium and higherdensity housing, thus helping to avoid urban sprawl, Clohecy said. While they favoured the OP's direc tion. some regional councillors had some reservations. Oakville Regional Councillor Allan Elgar said he's concerned the OP review doesn't call for designating all agricultur al land as greenlands. which would bring with it more protection. He said he's worried someone will "cut down a woodlot under the guise of a farmer," and abuse the land.