Muggah Creek Watershed
PUBLICATION: Times Colonist (Victoria)
DATE Tue 11 May 1999
EDITION FINAL
SECTION/CATEGORY Voices
PAGE NUMBERA9
BYLINE Susan Riley
COLUMN TITLE National Issues
STORY LENGTH 712
HEADLINE:
Cabinet minister responds with everything but action
Has the toxic pond in your backyard started to ooze orange sludge?
Are you troubled by the vicious tornadoes that upended communities
in Oklahoma, or, closer to home, by an unseasonably dry spring and
the forest fires already making their hungry way across Manitoba
and Ontario?
Is the fact that every new season seems to break an old weather
record -- worst ice storm, mildest winter, hottest year -- more
than coincidence?
It would all be very unsettling if we didn't have a dynamic,
well-funded federal Environment Department under the leadership of
** a strong minister like Christine Stewart.
In two years on the job, Stewart has proven repeatedly there is no
environmental crisis to which she will not respond with further
research. Or a comprehensive study leading to a strategic plan. Or
--for urgent matters, like climate change -- full-blown ``issues
tables.''
The minister outlined for a skeptical (sometimes downright
disbelieving) Commons environment committee last week the many
initiatives she has launched to protect our natural world
(without, of course, interfering with existing corporate practices
or intruding on provincial jurisdictions).
Fresh water? Federal officials have persuaded all the provinces
but Quebec to agree to a moratorium on the export of bulk fresh
water pending further study. (Quebec, naturally, is conducting its
own investigation.) Eventually, says Stewart, all the country's
environment ministers will unite to produce a ``Canadian
fresh-water strategy,'' although it could take ``years.''
Presumably, Canadian companies eager to sell our lake water to
arid southern states, premiers eying potential jobs, and American
entrepreneurs itching to challenge our trade laws will be as
patient as our Zen-like environment minister.
No sense rushing, after all, when we know so little about fresh
water (apart from the trivial fact that we need it to survive).
Any strategy will be based on whatever intelligence the
International Joint Commission on the Great Lakes uncovers, says
Stewart. (It might start by looking out the windows: Great Lakes
water levels are three feet lower than usual, as predicted by
scientists a decade ago.)
As for endangered-species legislation, Mexico, Australia and the
United States may have passed laws first -- the Americans have
been protecting wildlife for as long as 25 years -- but that
doesn't mean Canada's, once it comes, won't be better. Stewart
promises a law this fall to ``protect all species at risk wherever
they appear in Canada'' on federal, provincial, private or
municipal land. Species, but not the habitat upon which they
depend to survive. Habitat is tricky, Stewart concedes. Habitat is
provincial. Habitat is unresolved.
So, asked Liberal MP Clifford Lincoln, in a province like Quebec
which already protects certain endangered species (they're all
plants), there might be ``two governments protecting species, but
no government protecting the habitat that keeps the species alive?
I find that extraordinary.''
It's nothing, however, compared to Stewart's bold initiative on
climate change. After Canada grudgingly conceded to limit
greenhouse gas emissions to six per cent below 1990 levels at the
Kyoto conference 18 months ago, federal officials summoned 450
experts to sit at 15 issues tables and produce background reports,
public outreach plans, strategic approaches -- you're probably
starting to get the picture. Anything but action. Stewart is
enthusiastic, however: Alberta's once recalcitrant fossil-fuel
industry has now taken the lead, she says.
For every issue, there is similar reassurance. Importing Russian
plutonium? ``Not my department,'' says Stewart. The
much-ballyhooed ``harmonization'' with the provinces? No
``implementation agreements'' with Ontario yet, but the minister
has sent stiff letters to Queen's Park; the feds haven't abdicated
all responsibility for the environment. No, she can't divulge the
subject of the letters.
** Here's an action plan for Christine Stewart and her demoralized
staff: keep the weather service, but disband the rest of
** Environment Canada.Why should we be paying these people to stall,
to study, to serve as enablers for dinosaurs in industry and
tinpot potentates in provincial capitals? It's not just the
fuzzy-backed milquetoast; we're all feeling endangered here.
Of course, eliminating a department would require a study by the
multi-stakeholder advisory group. That may sound inadequate, but
as the minister told the Commons, when asked about the poor people
who live on Frederick Street in Sydney, N.S., upstream from the
tar ponds, ``It is quite incorrect to say nothing is being done.''
