Counterpoint: Question #23
The Lindsay Post is running a weekly series of questions, with answers by both the "Yes" and "No" sides of the issues.

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Question #23:
How would your system ensure effective emergency services during a crisis such as the recent blackout?

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      A story last Friday in this newspaper described how Milt and Barb Wallace, who operate Sun Run Centre near Cameron, didn't know that there was a power black-out until their daughter telephoned from Vancouver to tell them. They are truly "off the grid", generating their own electricity with solar panels and a wind generator.

     The Wallaces and the local Mennonite community are usually among the last to know of breakdowns in Ontario's power generation system. People in rural areas tend to take the periodic interruption of power in stride, being able to heat with wood, or crank up emergency generators. We dig out the old kerosene lamp, throw a few blankets over the freezer and generally hunker down until the power returns.

     This isn't to say that the great black-out of 'ought 3' wasn't an inconvenience to the residents of the City of Kawartha Lakes. It was. Many local businesses lost perishable food when freezers and refrigerators stopped functioning.

     Apartment buildings became stuffy and gloomy places indeed, and residents became re-acquainted with stairwells. The hospital and nursing homes were frightening places to find oneself when power stopped flowing.

     If anything good came of our rude, instant return to the nineteenth century it was that we all started to make contingency plans for this sort of event happening again. Oh yes, and we all could say "At least we aren't living in Toronto."

     We heard stories of people making the dizzying descent on shank's mare from the 51's story of a downtown office tower only to be faced with a five hour walk home through grid-locked streets.

     Torontonians became involuntary tunnel rats when subway trains ground to a halt between stations. Gas stations couldn't pump gas for automobiles which couldn't move anyway.

     And who can ever forget the newspaper photographs of the brave and orderly city folk standing in long line-ups, perplexingly, to make emergency purchases at the beer store?

     We have come to take the availability of electricity for granted. But, like it or not, we depend heavily on Hydro One and Ontario Power Generation Corp. and the Independent Market Operators to keep the juice flowing.

     When, from time to time it doesn't, we have emergency plans as we did before amalgamation, as we have now, and as we will have at both the lower-tier local municipality, and the upper-tier, County level after de-amalgamation to get us through the rough spots.

     If forced amalgamation of municipalities into centralized, mega-cities was supposed to be the answer to the challenge of planning for emergencies, Toronto's experience on August 14th blew the theory out of the water.

     We need to remind ourselves that there are hundreds of un-amalgamated small municipalities throughout Ontario that managed to cope with the power blackout.

     In fact, if ever there was a metaphor for the benefits of not being fully integrated into amalgamated mega-cities, it was the fact that, while the rest of us were hunting for candles, the lights didn't go out in Haliburton. Small, independent, power generating plants continued to produce the power which was needed to restart the big nuclear power generating stations.

     Hats off to the City's emergency services crews who did their jobs well during the black-out. We expected no less. We will expect, and get, the same professionalism from fire, police and ambulance service providers after de-amalgamation.