The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
When it comes to the environment, climate change understandably tops the agenda of public concerns. After all, failing to curb greenhouse gas emissions now could have calamitous ecological, economic and social consequences down the road. But a report last week by interim federal environment commissioner Ron Thompson serves as a welcome reminder that other pressing environmental issues also demand CanadaÕs attention. The report, which assessed how much progress Ottawa has made in 14 areas flagged in previous reports, found serious shortcomings in nine of them, some long-standing and others more recent. Among the problems he highlighted: efforts to clean up heavily polluted parts of the Great Lakes have stalled; not enough is being done to control the spread of aquatic invasive species, such as zebra mussels, which threaten recreational and commercial fisheries; Ottawa is dragging its feet on a comprehensive inventory of endangered species and regulating genetically engineered fish; and the federal governmentÕs attempts to make its own operations more environmentally friendly have been hampered by fuzzy targets and spotty compliance. On a positive note, Thompson said the military has made progress in identifying and assessing the risk of ocean dumpsites containing explosives and chemical weapons. He also gave the government credit for speeding up the assessment of potentially dangerous chemicals. But given the overall critical tone of the report, the Conservative governmentÕs response was disheartening. While saying he accepted the findings, Environment Minister John Baird blamed the Liberals for doing Òlittle or nothing to fix those problemsÓ while in office. If Baird truly shared the concerns of ordinary Canadians for the environment, he would stop pointing fingers and propose concrete steps to address the serious problems Thompson has highlighted.
