Patrick, the chief-editor of this magazine, called me and said “so, about your column, do you think you could hand it in tomorrow?” Tomorrow! Geez, I just came out of a demanding annual meeting and here I am trying to brainstorm and scribble something intelligent for the magazine.

Well, since there’s so little time left before deadline, I can’t really talk about anything controversial that would require a minimum of research. Therefore, I can’t discuss the Union paysanne, nor can I talk about quota values, and even less about the Colbex slaughterhouse. However, I could talk about the new minister, Mr. Yvon Vallières, of whom I’ve heard a lot of good things and he would certainly make a good subject, but he just started the job, poor guy, and hasn’t even received his coffin from the UPA.

Faced with such restrictions, and instead of writing about just anything, I’ve decided to talk about a subject that is on everyone’s mind and will certainly be the object of multitude of briefs in the coming years: wind energy.

Hydro-Québec, which has long resisted this type of green energy, has just signed definitive agreements with two companies to build 8 wind turbine parks in the Gaspé peninsula. The two companies in question are Cartier Wind Energy, a Calgary-based business, and Northland Power, another Canadian enterprise.

To tell you the truth, this agreement saddens me. First, because it confirms that our great Crown corporation’s development strategy is to do business with outside promoters rather than local entrepreneurs. It’s a shame, because beyond any negotiated royalty, the profits generated by these turbines will leave the region to find refuge under the mattresses of urban shareholders. Just like in the forestry industry.

Signing this agreement also serves to confirm that the landowners for the lots located in the air corridor – farmers and foresters for the most part – will be relegated to passive roles throughout the development process. As for municipalities, they won’t have much to say either. Decisions, for the most part, will be imposed from the outside.

This type of development, which encourages the colonization of a region rather than its concertation, is unhealthy. Mr. Caillé can expect some level of discontent. And citizens may possibly switch allegiances. You’ll see: to all positive and advantageous effects of renewable energy and reduced production of the greenhouse gases, there’ll be an opposition to the unsightly large wind turbines – comparable to those awful high voltage lines defacing Quebec’s beautiful landscapes – their constantly annoying buzz, 24-7, which get louder as the wind get stronger, the necessary takeover of lines and pylons to hook up to the main network and the resulting devaluation of properties unlucky enough to be near them.

Yet, we can do this differently. Denmark, once again, is an example that is as revealing as it is unique. More than 20 percent of the energy consumed by 5.3 million Danes was produced by some 5,400 wind turbines planted throughout the countryside and beyond the shorelines of this compact country. What’s most extraordinary, is that 80% of these machines belong to farmers and producers or to cooperatives! In fact, the good citizens of this territory, thanks to a generous private investment assistance program, have, as early as 1970, owned the majority of wind turbines. Today, more than 150,000 Danish families own or have shares in these cooperatives. This is a good thing when pork and grain prices are in a slump.

Thankfully, there are people in Québec who are fighting to change things. The ingenious engineer Louis Drainville is one of them. He is the president of a small corporation in the lower St-Laurence area and is actively fighting for an integrated management of this new source of energy. His mission? Return control to the regions and encourage the creation of regional businesses (notably cooperatives) working to produce wind-based electricity.

But the people at Hydro-Québec are stubborn and have lots of disposable ‘income’. It won’t be an easy fight. But, according to my sources, Louis, brother of François Drainville (president of Agrivert, coopérative agricole régionale) and therefore the nephew of the illustrious Monsignor of the same name, is just as stubborn. I’m told that it runs in the family, that it’s genetic. Good for us.