environment: B.C. cuts take toll on environment
Anna King, CUP Environment Bureau

The provincial government's recently announced restructuring plan includes a dramatic cut to the ministries responsible for environmental protection and resource regulation.

Five provincial ministries, including the Ministry of Forests and the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection, will lose approximately 35 per cent of their budgets over the next three years as well as one-third of their staff.

Running throughout the plan is a shift toward simplifying regulatory processes for industry and increased private sector responsibility.

"It's not self-regulation," said Joyce Murray, minister of water, land and air. "We're still going to establish environmental standards, but we're not going to continue telling industry how to do what they do."

"In the past, there were prescriptive rules and lots of checking up," Murray said. "Now, companies will be expected to monitor results themselves and post them."

Environmental groups, however, are worried that less monitoring, fewer staff and a slated elimination of one third of government regulations will mean lower environmental standards.

Dale Marshall, a policy analyst with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, says the government has changed its role from that of a watchdog to a service provider for industry.

"The words used [in the ministries' service plans] are entirely business oriented. The plans talk of ending constraints to economic development and giving certainty to industry," Marshall said.

The Ministry of Energy and Mines will change a multi-agency permitting process to a single window regime that hopes to double oil and gas production by 2008. And the Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management has committed to "providing faster approvals and greater access to Crown land."

This combination, Marshall says, will mean potential mining and oil and gas projects will get pushed through without adequate environmental assessment.

Mike Hogan, director of communications for the Ministry of Forests, said the Forest Practices Code would change to a "results-based" rather than "process-based" system. This means government will not monitor every step of a logging operation, but will rather look at the end product to see that standards are met.

Tim Howard, a lawyer with the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, says the government's failure to adequately supervise logging could lead to lawsuits for environmental and health hazards like landslides and drinking water contamination.

"Eighty-five per cent of B.C.'s drinking water comes from surface water," Howard said. "These cuts indicate the Liberals are highly unlikely to protect the watersheds our water comes from."

Howard is the author of a recent report that highlights the potential public health costs to budget slashing. The report points to events like the Walkerton, Ontario drinking water contamination disaster, as the result of budget and staff cutbacks and deregulation.

Howard also says he doesn't think the government will follow the recommendations of the drinking water review panel that issued its interim report recently.

The review panel recommends the creation of a drinking water protection agency and a clear statement that the Drinking Water Protection Act will prevail over any other acts, such as the Forest Practices Code.

Murray, however, says the cuts will not affect drinking water and points out that her ministry is allocating an extra $1.5 million to drinking water protection.

Along with cutting 1,400 jobs, the Ministry of Forests will decommission many logging roads, close forest service offices and transfer maintenance for many recreation sites to other agencies.

Other changes include a rise in camping fees and commercial partnerships in parks. As well, ministry staff will no longer respond to reports of "low-risk" hazardous waste spills.

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