by
Member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba
Jon Gerrard
The science is now abundantly clear: sustainability is not enough. We are not only doing major damage to our natural environment today, we have been doing so for generations. Merely adopting a policy of environmental 'sustainability' will not undo the many, many years of ecological damage that has already been done to our environment through climate change, degradation of our water resources, wildlife mismanagement, and other human activities. And it appears that both the NDP and Conservatives in Manitoba are unable to grasp this simple fact.
Here's a quote from Green and Growing, the NDP's 'green strategic framework', whatever that particular buzzword means:
"Manitobans are lucky. We are blessed with a clean, natural environment and vast water resources that are the envy of the world. But it might not always be that way." (p2).
Not exactly. One trip to Lake Winnipeg during algal bloom season and you can see for yourself the pea soup that Lake Winnipeg has already become. Or take a trip to Kississing Lake and see the results of over 75 years of mine tailings leaching from the mine at Sherridon – a mine that has sat abandoned for more than 50 years. Four years have passed since the last meeting of the Manitoba Endangered Species Advisory Committee, a committee that Dr. Robert Wrigley has publicly referred to as being "in hibernation." Today, only 30 species are currently listed under Manitoba's Endangered Species Act, while COSEWIC (the federal Endangered Species committee) lists 56 endangered species in Manitoba.
Here's the hard truth. "In the last 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than at any other time in history." (United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, March 2005).
That puts the current provincial government out of sync with ecological reality by at least 50 years.
This is where Manitoba Liberals differ fundamentally from New Democrats and Conservatives. We are not content to see sustainability alone placed on the public agenda; Liberals want to put environmental quality at the very centre of public policy in Manitoba.
Also unlike Conservatives and New Democrats, Manitoba Liberals do not see a public policy of ensuring environmental quality as something harmful to the provincial economy – if we are prepared to change our thinking of what 'economy' really means. In fact, I believe one of the major reasons for Conservative and NDP failure on the environment is their refusal to re-examine how they see our economy.
Climate Change
Let's start with the global issue of climate change. Little has to be said today about the need to deal with the problem. The impacts for Manitoba of global warming are alarming: increased occurrence of severe weather events, intensified flooding, deeper rainy and drought seasons, irregular water levels in watersheds, melting permafrost, shrinking boreal forests. Already, we are witnessing the impact of global warming on our province's polar bear population in the far North.
Sadly, despite the rhetoric and spin coming from the current provincial government, Manitoba has been going in the wrong direction in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. CO2 emissions today are now 11% higher than in 1990. According to Environment Canada, Manitoba's GHG emissions between 2004 and 2005 increased from 2.4 million tonnes to 2.9 million tonnes on the NDP's watch.
This is not the record of a leader on climate change.
Liberals, however, fully recognize the challenge: we are the party of the Kyoto Protocol. Liberals were the ones to sign on to Kyoto and we fully intend to keep our Kyoto commitment to reduce GHG emissions by at least 6% below 1990 levels. We are the first provincial party in Manitoba (and possibly Canada) to announce that we will run a carbon-neutral election campaign and a carbon-neutral provincial government.
The cornerstone to meeting our Kyoto targets is to have a clear action plan with annual targets for GHG reduction – something the NDP has never presented in its last eight years in office. I believe it is completely realistic to meet our targets if there is the political will to do so.
Liberal targets include:
- Reduction of transportation-related GHGs from the current 2010 prediction of 7 megatonnes to between 5 and 6 megatonnes. These reductions can be accomplished by provincial incentives to switch to hybrid vehicles and other types of fuel efficient forms of transportation such as public transit.
- Reduction of household and industrial GHG production from the current 2010 prediction of 10 megatonnes to between 8 and 9 megatonnes. These reductions will likely take the form of provincial incentives for increased winter heating efficiency through energy conversions to high efficiency natural gas and geo-thermal technology.
- Reduction of nitrous oxide production in agriculture from the current 2010 prediction of 7 megatonnes of CO2 equivalents by half to 3.5 megatonnes. The key policy instrument here will be to work with farmers to improve the ability to tailor the amount of fertilizer-borne nitrogen applied to their fields to the precise amounts needed for crop growth. Provincially assisted improvements to drainage and water storage in the province's water management infrastructure will also reduce the amount of water coming into contact with on-field nitrogen.
Manitoba can and must do better than this. Additional measures that we need to see at the provincial level are the establishment of:
- A provincial energy plan with mandated renewable energy quotas and specific targets and deadlines.
- A public inventory of carbon held in Manitoba soils, forests, lands and water.
- Public posting of emissions data for large emitters starting at 100,000 tonnes of emission per year.
- Independent third party auditing of climate change reduction measures taken by government and industry.
As Manitoba Liberal leader, I am totally committed to delivering on our province's share of Canada's Kyoto commitment – and more.
Water Protection and Lake Winnipeg
Even less spectacular than the province's record on climate change has been the provincial government's abysmal record on water protection.
During eight years of NDP government, the algal bloom problem on Lake Winnipeg has only gotten worse. Last summer, algal blooms on the lake were so bad that folks at Victoria Beach described the lake as a thick green pea soup. There is no excuse for this – the NDP had eight long years to fix the Tories' neglect of Lake Winnipeg and other Manitoba lakes that have problems with algal blooms. They failed.
As with climate change, we need to get past the provincial government's rhetoric and the apple-pie statements that they are 'concerned' or 'working on a strategy' to clean the lake. We need to go further than re-organizing the boxes on the government's org chart and creating a new department to handle water stewardship. What we need is a real plan with practical real-world solutions to cutting the amount of phosphorus that is finding its way into our waterways and lakes.
Manitoba Liberals have led the way in making the health of Lake Winnipeg a major election issue and we have a solid plan for tackling the issue of provincial water stewardship and protection. Our plan includes:
- A complete ban on phosphorous in household dishwasher detergents. Phosphate dishwasher detergents currently contribute about 2% of the phosphorous going into Lake Winnipeg annually. There are reasonably-priced phosphate-free alternatives already on the market, so this measure is more than practical. In fact, I have already introduced legislation in the Manitoba Legislature to do this. Unfortunately, the NDP is unwilling to support the bill.
- A complete ban on the winter spreading of livestock manure and human waste (municipal bio-solids) on Manitoba fields. We now know that the peak levels of phosphorous entering our rivers and streams happen during spring run off. That means eliminating the old practice of spreading manure and municipal bio-solids on farmers' fields in the winter months when the ground is unable to absorb and capture the phosphorus. Liberals of course recognize that this will be a major change in a long standing practice and that small livestock producers will need financial assistance to adapt. We would provide that assistance.
- A ban the use of phosphorous additives in municipal water systems. Currently, municipal water systems like Winnipeg's add a significant amount of phosphoric acid to the water supply to prevent erosion of the pipes carrying the water. This is an outdated practice and there are effective alternatives to phosphoric acid now available. It is estimated that 1% of the phosphorous going into Lake Winnipeg comes from water system additives.
- Provincial investment in municipal water management infrastructure. Approximately 6% of the phosphorus entering Lake Winnipeg comes from storm water and sewage that is not treated by the City of Winnipeg for phosphorus removal. Some estimates put the amount even higher. Municipalities need provincial assistance in making the necessary upgrades to remove phosphorus and I am very disappointed that for eight budgets in a row the NDP has not included this type of support.
- A stronger base of scientific knowledge about Lake Winnipeg and the sources of phosphorous. In spite of holding the reigns of power for eight years, the NDP has not ensured there is sufficient scientific research into the proportion of phosphorous contributed by the hog industry in Manitoba. Widely varying claims have been put forward – from 1% of the phosphorous going into Lake Winnipeg all the way up to 7.5%. The huge variation in the numbers reflects the refusal of the NDP to ensure full scientific investigation into this question and how to best reduce the amount of phosphorous entering our province's own great lake. Liberals are committed to providing better support for studies on Lake Winnipeg, but even more important, we will fund 6-12 intensive studies on small troubled watersheds in order to determine how best to reduce phosphorous loading and how best to reduce algal blooms in our many lakes. As an example, this would include an intensive examination of the Killarney Lake/Long River watershed to achieve effective reduction in the algal blooms problem on Killarney Lake. The results of these efforts can then be used more broadly in the Lake Winnipeg watershed.
Water Protection and Toxic Mine Wastes
Northern Manitoba has a number of mine sites where there are serious problems with toxic wastes leaching into the environment. Sherridon, Manitoba is one such example.
At Sherridon, a large pile of mine tailings that accumulated from the 1930s to the 1950s has been leaching into nearby Kississing Lake for decades. For kilometers out into Kississing Lake, toxic metals have gradually accumulated to the point where invertebrates, the inshore food for fish, are no longer present. The result has been a drastic decrease in certain bird species in the area extending kilometers from the outflow of Cold Lake (where the mine tailings are) into Kississing Lake. And the leaching continues to this day.
Despite some early words of protest from a few NDP backbenchers back when they were in opposition, we have heard remarkably little in eight years from the NDP government as to how it intends to contain toxic mine wastes in the North. That eight years have passed with no significant containment of the Sherridon/Kississing Lake site is proof of the hypocrisy of the NDP when it comes to environmental protection.
It is time for action. Sherridon/Kississing Lake is but one site where containment and clean-up are urgently required. Lynn Lake and Leaf Rapids both have similar problems and in the case of Lynn Lake, the problem is particularly severe. As head of a Liberal government, I would make containment and clean up of these sites at top priority for Manitoba by developing expertise in mine remediation that could even be put to good use elsewhere around the world.
Fisheries and Lake Winnipegosis
Historically, Lake Winnipegosis was the second most productive lake for pickerel (walleye) in Manitoba – second only to Lake Winnipeg. But beginning in the 1960s, there has been a catastrophic decline of the walleye fishery on Lake Winnipegosis that does not make major headlines in the big city.
The truth is that Lake Winnipegosis has never been managed in a way that would bring this fishery back to its former glory. Indeed, walleye yields in the 1990s under the Conservatives were about one-fortieth of their historic levels, and the fishery has only done modestly better in recent years. This is a tragedy for one of Manitoba's great environmental wonders.
What has been missing in the case of Lake Winnipegosis is a strong, science-based fishery management approach. Turning a blind eye to the collapse of the Lake Winnipegosis fishery, and the disruption to the area's whole ecosystem that this collapse entails, does nothing to restore what we have disrupted. Again, Manitoba Liberals are not content with the sustainability of the status quo, we are interested in doing all that we can in remediating what unchecked human activity has wrought.
Summary
Let me close by stepping back to illustrate the big picture. For too long, successive provincial governments have treated the environment as something 'out there', detached or separate from humanity, a tool to be used in the maintenance of humanity.
Today, more and more people are coming to realize that the environment is something more than just what surrounds us. It is something more akin to a fundamental infrastructure for life and all that entails.
Taking care of the environment is really taking care of ourselves.
Tourists will not be attracted to algal filled waters. Depleted fisheries are depleted food sources as well as depleted jobs. Poor stewardship of our lands produces lower agricultural yields. Polluted waterways mean more work to treat and clean up water before and after we drink it.
This is the economic and social cost to mistreating our environment. Spending provincial resources on minimizing and remediating environmental damage is not an economic cost; it's an investment in our economic future. Economically, poor environmental stewardship is the equivalent of putting sand in your factory's machinery. It makes no sense.
And it's time we had a provincial government that truly grasps that most basic fact of life.
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ISSN 1708-721X