It's Not Easy Being Green

Canada now ranks behind the United States for environmental protection
By PHILIP PREVILLE
From The Front

Gary Gallon remembers the good old days of the Canada-USA environmental wars. It was the early 1980s, Gallon was Ontario's deputy minister of the environment, and Canada was at the forefront of the world's nations in terms of environmental protection. This country was leading the fight against acid rain, forcing polluters to cut back on emissions. But south of the border, the Reagan administration refused to follow suit: America was so desperate to avoid any regulation, they even manufactured "studies" which said acid rain did not exist. Canada, securely standing atop the moral high ground, was indignant. Yep, them's was the good old days.

"The tables have turned," says Gallon, now director of the Montreal-based Canadian Institute for Business and the Environment (CIBE). "Canada used to lead the U.S. and all the OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] nations. Now we're a follower."

The CIBE released a report last week analyzing Environment Canada's budget estimates for the coming year and comparing them with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The CIBE's analysis shows that, even taking into account the differences in population and economic activity, Canada spends less than half what the USA does on ecological protection and enforcement.

In the coming year, the report says, the EPA will spend $7.6 billion on such activities. Since the USA's population and economic activity is 10 times larger than Canada's, Environment Canada should spend about $760 million.

Instead, Environment Canada's budget for the coming year stands at $551 million. And that figure includes some creative government bookkeeping: of that amount, $193 million is used solely for monitoring and forecasting the weather, leaving only $358 million for environmental protection.

"Since 1990, the United States has moved way ahead of Canada in terms of environmental protection," concludes Gallon. "Just look at the state of California: they have roughly the same population and economic activity as all of Canada, and they will spend $876 million on environmental protection this year.

"And that doesn't include the weather."

The CIBE's analysis follows on the heels of two other highly critical reports about Canada's failure to protect its environment. On May 26, the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Environment issued a report that made a mockery of Canada's enforcement activities. The very next day, Brian Emmett, Commissioner on the Environment and Sustainable Development, issued his annual report criticizing the government for failing to live up to its international commitments.

Now this. Gallon says the Americans are taking notice. "The Washington Post did a story last week about Canada backing out of its environmental commitments, and as word spreads our reputation will suffer. Canada has always been an exporter of expertise and technology in this field. We were sought after because we were clean and green. Now that we're dirty and yellow, pretty soon we'll be importing the technology."

The CIBE report also states that, out of Environment Canada's total budget, only $16.9 million is spent on compliance and enforcement. "They only conducted five prosecutions last year," Gallon notes. "I suspect they're spending even less than that." He says Environment Canada spends more and more money on information campaigns rather than real enforcement.

Environment Canada disputes the CIBE's findings. "Comparisons with the EPA aren't necessarily reliable," Mark Colpitts, press secretary for Environment Minister Christine Stewart, told the Mirror. "Provinces in Canada have more power and responsibility over the environment than states do in the U.S. So the EPA does more in the U.S. than Environment Canada does here."

Colpitts admitted he had not yet seen the CIBE's analysis. "They might be playing with numbers, they might not. I don't know. We will have to study it before I can give a more concrete response."

Numbers aside, other policy experts say it's clear that Canada is playing second fiddle to its southern neighbour. "Canada has definitely fallen behind the U.S., for two reasons, " says Director Paul Muldoon of the Canadian Environmental Law Association, "One, they're underfunding the program. And two, they're moving to a voluntary approach to enforcement, letting companies set their own goals and monitor themselves."

Says Muldoon of the Canada-USA spending figures: "Statistics are never totally reliable, but as a raw comparison, they say an awful lot. Environment Canada is in serious trouble."

One policymaker, who requested anonymity, said some of the blame for the problem lies squarely on the shoulders of corporate lobbyists. "The resource and energy industries have been telling Ottawa, 'Get us out of our recession, remove the red tape,'" the individual told the Mirror. "They said they couldn't stay competitive when the government was increasing their costs with more and more environmental regulation. And it's true that there was some over-regulation. But now they've thrown the baby out with the bath-water. They're regulating far less than they should be."

Environment Canada has been a primary victim of Finance Minister Paul Martin's budget cuts. After taking a $22-million cut last year, the Environment Ministry's budget was slashed by another $48 million in this year's budget.

From his years with Ontario's Environment Department, Gallon thinks he knows the answer to the problem. "You want to save money? Okay, let's save money: revamp the entire department. Turn it into a monitoring and compliance agency that does enforcement and nothing else."