THE PROVINCE
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Victoria, Ottawa still failing environment
Both governments have work to do in restoring standards in B.C.
James McNulty
The Province
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Coal-stoking Premier Gordon Campbell heard something as rare as the hoot of a spotted owl last week: A murmur of applause from environmentalists.
It had the emptiness of one hand clapping, but there it was. Faint praise for Campbell returning something called "environment" to his stable of cabinet ministries.
Yet the jury remains unconvinced that Chilliwack MLA Barry Penner will be allowed any influence in the B.C. Liberal church of business.
Campbell's disdain for the E-word was evident from the moment he took power in 2001, killing the department for two low-budget, staff-slashing substitutes.
The ministries of earth, wind and tires, and air, smoke and mirrors.
They were a glove fit for Campbell's addiction to environmental deregulation as he merrily shilled for such eco-friendly activities as fish-farming, offshore drilling, and coalbed-methane extraction.
Four years and dozens of harsh critiques later, the premier found his E-word approach had taken British Columbia to the bottom of Canada's environment rankings.
Despite endorsements from four major daily newspapers, all conveniently failing to note his dreadful record on the E-word, Campbell lost nearly three-dozen seats. Shazam, the E-word ministry is back, allowing him to spin the multitudes on his new Green Giant stewardship.
Back on Planet Tires, former park-warden Penner faces a climb from the methane beds that would kill a good Everest man before high noon -- much like Stephane Dion, Paul Martin's green suit, choking on vows to cut smog and greenhouse gases.
The Sierra Club of Canada has just awarded B.C. dismal grades of F on biodiversity and climate change in its 13th annual report on government enviro-performance.
The lotusland where Campbell's neglect rapidly brings on the extinction of spotted owls "is one of the last provinces still lacking stand-alone endangered species legislation," said Sierra.
What victim follows the owl?
The province's "greenhouse-gas emissions are rising faster than the national average," yet "the premier appears to be on a campaign to increase B.C.'s reliance on fossil fuels."
Campbell's climate-change plan of 2004 lacks "targets, goals or timelines" and "anticipates expanded fossil-fuel production in B.C."
Gordon Campbell Bush. Texas Columbia. Mighty fine.
Sierra notes the B.C.'s mines ministry's alternative energy branch has only five staffers on a $300,000 research budget, while Campbell's offshore-oil booster bureaucracy has 13 staffers on a $5.8-million annual budget.
"The B.C. government's record on climate-change is nothing short of appalling," Sierra concludes. It is no better with fish-farming, the parasitic delta where Victoria's shame meets Ottawa's disgrace.
Ottawa received a C+ overall, with a D+ on biodiversity and F's on commitments to make trade and the environment mutually supportive, and review pesticide and toxic-chemical policies.
The Campbell regime is filleted for recklessly permitting aquaculture destruction of wild habitat. Sierra chops the head off Ottawa's department of fisheries and oceans.
Hapless Gerry Regan's "department of fish farms and oil" requires a full review to stop it from ranking fish-farming ahead of a constitutional mandate to protect wild fish.
"It is time to demand extraordinary intervention to the crisis in Canada's fish policy," says Sierra, accusing DFO of "a political preference for the salmon aquaculture industry" while failing repeatedly on wild-salmon policy.
None of this shocks those watching DFO dive to the splash of Campbell's net-pens. Top DFO scientists still claim to not know if sea-lice infestations from Broughton Archipelago farms harm wild salmon.
Biologist Alexandra Morton, who outed the lice capades, told reporters DFO "is stalling and as they stall, the [wild] fish are going extinct."
Earth to Ottawa, Earth to Victoria, . . . calling E-word ministry, calling DFO . . . mayday . . . mayday . . .