Liberal reaction on garbage stinks
The McGuinty government’s reaction to the looming garbage crisis in Ontario has been nothing short of pathetic. Various Ontario municipalities, including Toronto, York, Peel, and Durham, are now shipping their garbage to a landfill site in Michigan.
But, as The Star’s Kerry Gillespie reported this week, there is a bill before the U. S. Congress that would effectively close the border to our garbage. Then where would we put it?
Premier Dalton McGuinty’s response to that question this week was to pass the buck. “ The responsibility for management of waste is municipal.” Nonsense.
First of all, municipalities are constitutionally “ creatures of the provinces.” That means ultimately the buck stops at Queen’s Park.
Second, we’re not talking about speed bumps here. Garbage is a province- wide problem that requires transboundary solutions. Densely populated Toronto, for example, is not going to find a place to dump or burn its waste inside its own boundaries. Hence, the province must be involved in finding solutions. The governing Liberals don’t want to admit this because the solutions — be they landfill sites or incinerators — will be vote- losers wherever they may be located. So the Liberals spent question period this week trying to turn the tables on the questioners. When Conservative Leader John Tory asked McGuinty, “ Do you have a plan?” the Premier responded: “ If the Leader of the Opposition has specific sites in mind, I would ask that he put those communities on notice today so that they have some understanding of where it is he thinks Toronto’s waste should be delivered.” John Wilkinson, parliamentary assistant to the minister of the environment ( Laurel Broten, who is on maternity leave), continued in this snide vein in response to follow- up questions from Tory and from NDP environment critic Marilyn Churley.
Along the way, Wilkinson also claimed: “ We have an amazing plan ( for dealing with garbage if the border is closed).” But he never said what it was, inside or outside the Legislature.
It is tempting to describe the government’s garbage policy as being like an ostrich with its head in the sand. But that simile doesn’t quite fit this situation because it suggests the government knows there is danger down the road and it is hiding from it. On the contrary, the Queen’s Park Liberals seem blissfully ignorant that a potential disaster lurks ahead. They are like the Kaiser telling German troops on their way to the front in the first week of August 1914: “ You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees.” To be sure, the Liberal government is not the first one to pass the buck on the garbage problem. The previous Conservative regime adopted the same mantra — “ It’s a municipal responsibility.” And, as one of their first actions upon assuming power, the Conservatives abolished the Interim Waste Authority, which had been established by the New Democrats to find a landfill site for Toronto’s garbage. But at least the Conservatives worked behind the scenes — unsuccessfully, it turned out — to try to tilt Toronto toward an abandoned mine in Kirkland Lake as the solution to the city’s garbage problem. One of the first things the Liberals did upon taking office was to pass a bill closing off the Kirkland Lake option. Since then, they have wiped their hands of the problem.
There is, of course, always the possibility that the Liberals have a contingency plan that they don’t want to release lest they needlessly scare various communities around the province. But whether or not the border is closed in the short term, no one believes shipping our garbage to Michigan is a long- term solution to the problem. The time to debate alternatives is now, and the place to do it is Queen’s Park, not city hall. Ian Urquhart’s provincial affairs column appears Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. iurquha@thestar.ca.