Your a liberal spinner, the rest of us actually live and work in this province, we know what you have done, we work in it, we see it. You can no longer hide and spin what you have done.
VANCOUVER -- Leading conservation groups have issued a scathing
indictment of the provincial Liberal government's environmental
stewardship during its first two years in office.
"I have been involved in these issues for over 20 years and I have
never seen such an assault on the environment as we've seen by the
Liberals in the past two years," said Vicky Husband, chairwoman of the
B.C. chapter of the Sierra Club.
"What they are doing is a massive betrayal of the public trust," said
Ms. Husband, who was appointed to the Order of Canada last year. Ms.
Husband's remarks were made in conjunction with the release of a
report card on the provincial government's environmental record, which
gave out a failing grade in all five categories assessed.
The report card, which listed 54 examples of government decisions
allegedly harmful to the environment and just nine positive moves
under the Liberals, was issued by a broad-based coalition including
the David Suzuki Foundation, Greenpeace, West Coast Environmental Law
and the Sierra Club.
The organizations focused on proposed huge changes to the provinces'
Forest Practices Code, new drinking-water standards and drastic cuts
to parks and conservation enforcement staff.
They said the provincial government is rolling back regulations and
legislation that took years to put in place.
"The pace of change and the scope of change by this government has
been dramatic," said Karen Campbell of West Coast Environmental Law.
"We are seeing the complete rewriting of laws without any public
hearings or consultation."
The groups charged that the B.C. government is the only one in Canada
to weaken its drinking-water regulations since the Walkerton, Ont.,
tainted-water tragedy.
"There are no standards for arsenic, industrial solvents and giardia
[a microbe that can cause illness] in our water," Ms. Campbell said.
"And drinking-water protection will be subordinate to logging and
mining interests.
"In Walkerton, seven people had to die before people in Ontario
realized something was wrong."
Jim Fulton, head of the David Suzuki Foundation, said the old
right-wing Social Credit government that presided over the province
for nearly 40 years had a better environmental record than the current
government.
"[Former Socred] Premier Bill Vander Zalm actually did some good
things. They actually had a transparent process on many issues," Mr.
Fulton said. "But [Liberal Premier] Gordon Campbell is dropping the
B.C. public interest down an elevator shaft. I know of no jurisdiction
in Canada that has tossed so much good into a bonfire."
Water, Land and Air Protection Minister Joyce Murray strongly rejected
the allegations.
"It seems the environmentalists have a job to do and feel they can
only do it by bashing the government. I am very proud of our record,"
Ms. Murray declared.
She called the damning report card "a very, very biased accounting of
what's going on. It reads like a political agenda."
Ms. Murray said the charge that B.C. has weakened its drinking water
regulations was nonsense, noting that the province was previously
known as the "wild west" for ground water.
"Now we are developing ground water regulations for the first time. .
. . [and we have] source-to-tap assessment of every drinking water
system in the province.
"Their report is very selective, very unbalanced. They pull one piece
out of legislation they don't like, and use that one piece to bash the
government. "There are over 400 environmental groups in the province
and it's not possible to satisfy everyone," the minister said.
She acknowledged reductions in staffing levels but said conservation
officers are now being used more efficiently, rather than sitting
around in offices answering the phone on minor matters.
However, Ms. Husband of the Sierra Club said B.C. will now have only
one staff member for every seven parks, and parks will be be open to
commercial development.
Bill Tieleman's Political Connections column in the Georgia Straight for Dec. 26, 2002-Jan 2, 2003
CHOKED names B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell "Clean Air Villain of the Year."
CHOKED, a clean air advocacy group in Smithers, B.C., has awarded B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell its inaugural "Clean Air Villain of the Year" award for 2002.
Mr. Campbell has rolled back environmental protection for the polluters of B.C. by numerous amendments to Orders in Council, by responding favourably to the B.C. Business Council's call for a rewrite to weaken the province's Waste Management Act, and has waited until the traditional slow news period at the very end of the year to renew the operating permits for 14 antique pollution engines called "beehive burners."
"The burner permit extension was the deciding factor," said CHOKED President Dave Stevens. "Lots of B.C. polluters were in contention, but really, the nerve of the man sneaking this amendment furtively out as a Christmas present to his backers in the forest industry is just too much. No way can anyone else be credited with doing as much damage to the respiratory health of British Columbians as its Premier."
Other considerations were Mr. Campbell's commitment to coal as a fuel source, his government's addiction to greenhouse gas emissions, and encouragement of offshore oil exploration with its attendant ghastly emissions dangers, at the wrong time in history.
Beehive burners are crude incineration devices that burn sawmill waste at low temperatures resulting in poor combustion. Joyce Murray, Minister responsible for B.C.'s Water, Land and Air Protection programs, has simultaneously stated her support for clean air initiatives and saluted and obeyed when told to extend pollution permits. All the Christmas Pollution Permits are for burners fouling the air near population centres. Many more remote burners are subject to little or no regulation. They represent a fire hazard and a hazard to the respiratory health of the population at large. Children, the elderly and those with pre-existing respiratory problems are known to be especially at risk.
David Anderson, federal Minister of Environment, states that upwards of four thousand people in Canada die each year from breathing the kind of air contaminants produced by these burners.
It is especially noteworthy that Mr. Campbell is trying to salvage much-needed brownie points in the polls by vigorously opposing the permits of the controversial SE2 power plant proposed just across the U.S. border from Abbotsford, B.C. It will produce particulate pollution from gas fired generators. He is simultaneously trying to impose gas fired turbine power generation in Vancouver Island, also a part of the Georgia Basin airshed.
"Try a little of that Bush-style sabre-rattling at domestic polluters, why don't you," said Stevens. "It's enough to make you wonder what Mr. Campbell tells his kids he does for a living."
http://cleanairbc.tc.ca