Recommendation turfs SERL
employees & families from JAG
By Steve MacInnis, Cape Breton Post, March 12, 1999
Members of the board and employees of a
provincial Crown corporation along with their
immediate family members should be banned from
sitting on five committees of the Joint Action Group
(JAG).
In an unanimous decision issued this week, JAGs
ethics committee recommended those associated
with Sydney Environmental Resources Ltd. (SERL)
not be permitted to sit on the following committees:
roundtable; steering; governance, environmental
data and remedial options.
The persons falling under these categories should
be relegated to observer status with the same
rights and limitations as any other JAG observer,
wrote Douglas Lloy, ethics committee chairperson.
No one from the JAG secretariat was prepared to
comment on the issue Thursday, release a copy of
the decision the Post obtained its own or even
identify ethics committee members. The only
comment from SERL was that they were
disappointed and reserved further comment until
later this month.
JAG program co-ordinator Mike Britten would only
explain the process that now must be followed.
He said the decision must be ratified by the JAG
roundtable at a scheduled meeting March 24 and
SERL employees have 30 days from the March 8
filing date in which to launch an appeal.
Previous ethics committee decisions which have
primarily dealt with members conduct have not
been challenged by the roundtable or appealed.
JAG set to exclude representatives from
agency
By Tera Camus / Cape Breton Bureau-Halifax Herald, March 12, 1999
Sydney - Staff in charge of the rusting equipment on the banks of
the tar ponds may be booted off the Joint Action Group.
A recommendation from the JAG ethics committee ruled Thursday
that three staffers at Sydney Environmental Resources Ltd., formerly
known as the Sydney Tar Ponds Inc., were in conflict of interest and
should be excluded from the JAG process.
The recommendation comes after a recent four-day hearing into a
complaint by JAG member Mary Ruth MacLellan filed in April 1997.
"They are a vendor. ... Their total existence depends on JAG," Ms.
MacLellan said. "When you feel in your heart that this is wrong, you
have to pursue it."
Sydney Environmental Resources is owned by the province. It was
once the lead agency in the cleanup at the tar ponds. More than $53
million and 10 years were spent on a failed incineration project.
In 1996, when JAG was created by three levels of government, it
took over the company's job of handling the cleanup.
At the time, group member Bruno Marcocchio pushed to get staff of
Sydney Environmental Resources barred from JAG's
decision-making process because they could be competitors for
the cleanup when tenders are eventually called.
The controversy continued to build, and he was eventually kicked
out of JAG after calling one employee a derogatory name.
JAG will address the ethics committee recommendation at a
meeting set for March 24. The group as a whole will have to accept
or reject it at that time.
A news release Thursday from Sydney Environmental Resources
said it "regrets the recommendation."
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