Don't believe the hype
Stuart Trew
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illustration: dstrbo
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Stéphane Dion is quietly dismantling Environment Canada (whether he knows it or not)
Coinciding with this month's UN Climate Change Conference is a series of public consultations on "Smart Regulation." The Privy Council is telling Canadians that "smart" means "finding better, more effective ways to protect the health and safety of Canadians and Canada's natural environment within a regulatory system that supports innovation and economic growth." Most everyone else paying the slightest attention will tell you it means continuing to let industry regulate itself."[The Privy Council is] consulting the public about the proposed new marching orders for all government departments in Canada with respect to [the transformation] they will have to go through to create new standards and regulations in the future," said David Coon of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick, a few days after attending the Moncton consultation.
"[The Privy Council is] basically asking [federal departments] first of all to consider whether or not they can ... work out voluntary action with industry, or secondly whether we can adopt an American standard, if that's possible," he continued. It also wants departments to weigh all new regulations - health, environmental, agricultural - against the possible economic impact of enforcing them.
Contrary to all of Stéphane Dion's rosy talk about Canada's greenest budget in years, Environment Canada is actually leading this charge towards deregulation under the guise of "smart" regulation.
A SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY
One of Dion's first speeches as Environment
Minister emphasized a shift toward thinking of environmental issues as issues of "sustainable economy." It looked wise at the time. Sustainability has been the mantra of environmentalists since the '70s, some of whom - like the Sierra Club's Elizabeth May - are big fans of Dion for his progress on adding carbon dioxide to Canada's list of toxic substances.So why are others at the end of their rope? "Polluting industries have largely won in this country when it comes to cowing the federal government into action," said Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defence Canada.
Specifically, Smith and others have criticized Environment Canada's Sustainability Tables, functional as of last month, which "provide well-informed advice on how best to attain the highest level of environmental quality, as a means to enhance the health and well-being of Canadians, preserve our natural environment, and advance our long-term competitiveness," according to department material. The tables are symbolic of the kinds of barriers the Privy Council's new directive will put in the way of all new government regulations.
There are four Sustainability Tables currently operating in the areas of forestry, mining, chemicals and energy, each chaired by one senior bureaucrat and one head of industry. For instance, the chemicals table is chaired by Suzanne Hurtubise, deputy minister of Industry Canada, and co-chaired by Steve Griffiths, vice-president and general manager of Imperial Oil Canada. The need for such tables was "highlighted in climate change discussions over the last few years, when it became clear that the government and industry needed to improve their understanding of each other's realities," said Environment Canada.
At the helm of this bureaucratic expansion appears to be Samy Watson, the government lifer the Privy Council shifts around departments it feels need a "culture" change. Before becoming Dion's power-hoarding deputy minister, Watson was at the top of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. An Access to Information request filed by Canadian Health Coalition researcher Bradford Duplisea several years ago caught the deputy minister funding biotech industry propaganda from the public coffers. It was proof he's comfortable compromising public health for the sake of private companies.
Now, under the guise of making "science" the core concern of environmental regulations, Watson is helping the Privy Council remove the precautionary principle from new environmental regulations. If a policy can unfairly hurt corporate profits, then public health must be weighed against that policy's economic impact on investment.
"That's what happens when the logic of the market overtakes questions of justice and ethics," said Coon, adding that opposition from environmental groups to the 1988 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement hinged on this very real concern.
THE NAFTA BARRIER
Hugh Benevides, of the Canadian Environmental Law Association, spent last Friday at the Toronto public consultation on Smart Regulation, which he said was largely attended by industry groups in favour of the Privy Council's new regulatory framework. He told us that although parts of the government plan make sense, like killing outdated regulations, the premise is wrong.
"The assumptions are already in place for these meetings... that somehow you can have a balance between economic activity and protecting health and safety," said Benevides. "Our position is that as long as you have that balance institutionalized in the regulatory process, you're always going to dilute the protective aspect."
Benevides also said the Privy Council refers explicitly to NAFTA as one of the major barriers - "probably the most powerful" - to regulation in general. Under the Chapter 11 investment clause, a foreign company can sue the Canadian government if any of its laws or regulations, including those protecting public health or the environment, can be shown to unfairly impact profits. Corporate lawyers go as far as to threaten the Canadian, U.S. and Mexican governments with lawsuits prior to the tabling of laws they don't like. Smart Regulation will further normalize this strange and counterproductive arrangement, with disastrous effects.
Last month, the David Suzuki Foundation ranked Canada 28th worst polluter out of 30 OECD countries. And last week, a UN report on global warming put Canada at the bottom of a list of rich countries falling way short of their Kyoto promises. In 2003, the report said, we were pumping out 24.2 per cent more greenhouse gases than in 1990, making the required 6 per cent reduction from 1990 levels impossible.
"We are at rock bottom," said Smith. "There's no question - environmental protection has been beaten into the ground. There's no way of sugar-coating that fact."
And there's nothing "smart" or sustainable about it either.
