Ontario budget: Modest increase targets polluters

This is from the Star. As the article points out the total expenditure will not go very far in tackling Ontario's environmental problems but at least some of the problems wiil be somewhat alleviated. Regulations are useless without enforcement so the expenditures on inspectors is certainly long overdue. A half billion dollars to help Toronto Transit is not to be sneezed at either and is much more useful to ordinary Torontonians than a corporate tax cut.


Modest increase targets polluters
$48 million will go to hiring inspectors, equipment upgrades

Mar 26, 2008 04:30 AM
Kerry Gillespie
Queen's Park Bureau

It's the environment ministry's job to protect Ontario's natural environment and nab polluters who put residents' health at risk – and a $48 million boost makes that job just a bit easier.

The budget calls for more spending on inspectors, equipment upgrades, support to develop toxin-reducing legislation and public education campaigns.

That's all well and good, said Keith Stewart of WWF-Canada, but where's the money to tackle climate change?

"Premier Dalton McGuinty said climate change was a defining issue of our generation ... and (yesterday) in the budget speech, the climate announcement was a continuation of a sales tax exemption for bicycles and Energy Star appliances," Stewart said.

The province's investment of $497 million in public transit in the Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton does help combat climate change, but given that the province is still spending more on building roads than transit, it doesn't go far enough, he said.

New environment spending this fiscal year includes:

$11 million to hire staff, including waste inspectors to make sure businesses and industry follow Ontario's recycling rules.
$10 million to modernize and upgrade lab and monitoring equipment, critical for accurate water, air and soil sampling.
$7 million to develop legislation to force industry to reduce its toxic emissions and support the province's plan to ban the use of non-essential pesticides.
$5 million for the first year of a four-year environmental public education campaign to increase participation in environmental initiatives and encourage Ontarians to adopt greener behaviour.
In his last annual report, Ontario's environmental commissioner Gord Miller said the ministry's budget was so woefully inadequate that some inspectors couldn't even afford to put gas in their vehicles. The caseload for inspectors is so high it's virtually impossible to ensure any sort of compliance with Ontario's environmental laws, he has said.