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July 5, 2001
Premier Mike Harris’ testimony lacked the ring of
truth
Did Premier Mike Harris’ answers to the Walkerton Inquiry
June 29 have the feeling of being well rehearsed and scripted? Yes.
Were they credible or believable? No.
Harris could not give a convincing answer to the central
question that was before him: why did your government ignore the numerous
warnings it received that deep budget cuts to the Ministry of the Environment
(MOE) could put public health at risk?
The Inquiry has learned that the Harris government slashed the
ministry’s budget by 48 percent from 1995 to 1998. It cut its workforce by a
third, closed its three regional labs and privatized the testing of routine
drinking water samples from municipal water systems.
The Inquiry has uncovered 10 government documents which warned
the Tories of the potential increased risk to human health and the environment
resulting from the cuts. There were also a number of "warning bells"
and "red flags", as Inquiry lawyer Paul Cavalluzzo called them, from
external sources, including OPSEU, the Environmental Commissioner and the
Ombudsman.
Cavalluzzo methodically took the Premier through a number of
the documents, including the MOE’s business plan (budget) of January 22, 1996.
It was approved by Cabinet February 28, 1996.
The business plan listed several key impacts of the budget
cuts, including: "The risk to human health and the environment may increase
as a result of improper or illegal actions which are neither detected, nor
controlled through orders and prosecutions as a result of decreased compliance
and enforcement activities."
Harris said – rather remarkably, considering the evidence
– in response to this document: "Well, let me say this, there’s risks
in everything but at no time was it brought to Cabinet’s attention, to my
attention, that the implementation of these business plans would cause increased
risk to health and safety of any citizen anywhere in this province."
Cavalluzzo asked Harris if he sought advice at the cabinet
meeting as to whether the risks outlined in the business plan were manageable.
Harris said he couldn’t recall. He then gave the unconvincing defense that if
they hadn’t been manageable, the Minister or senior civil servants would have
told him.
Like government witnesses before him, Harris couldn’t point
to any document that said the risks were manageable, nor to any document that
said how the ministry was going to manage them.
Harris was asked why the version of the business plan released
to the public in May, 1996, didn’t include the risks outlined in the original.
He replied, "that was information for the decision-makers."
Evidence at the Inquiry shows the Harris government was highly
concerned with spin. Every ministry had to submit a "marketing and
communications plan" along with its business plan. The Inquiry has heard
that staff from the Premier’s office and the Cabinet Office, the two centres
of power in the government, were involved in crafting the MOE’s message of
"no compromise to environmental protection."
The public version of the business plan said: "Without
lowering the current high level of environmental protection in Ontario, these
reforms will remove barriers that do not protect the environment and get in the
way of job-creating economic activity and growth".
Inquiry lawyer Paul Cavalluzzo called this statement
"misleading, at best". Harris disagreed, saying that it was consistent
with the advice his government was getting from senior ministry officials.
Harris displayed this same kind of "wilful
ignorance", as Toronto Star columnist Ian Urquhart put it in his column of
June 30, when asked questions about the privatization of water testing.
Municipalities were given two months notice in May, 1996, to
find a private lab to do their testing, in sharp contrast to the ministry’s
original plan to phase in the privatization over two to three years. The three
regional MOE labs were subsequently closed and their staff laid off.
Cavalluzzo took Harris through a number of criticisms of the
privatization of water testing from external sources, including the
Environmental Commissioner in her April, 1997, report.
The "final red flag" as Cavalluzzo called it, was
the correspondence between two successive health ministers and Environment
Minister Norm Sterling. They advised Sterling to legislate the notification
requirements of private labs so they would immediately report bad test results
to local health units.
Harris rejected the testimony of an earlier MOE witness who
said he was told that the government’s well-know distaste for regulation
discouraged the ministry from drafting such a regulation.
Harris agreed that in hindsight the government did receive a
number of warnings.
He could not give an adequate response about what his
government did to act on them. He said: "The Ministry would have been asked
to respond to those [warnings]. There are comments and questions and concerns
with everything that our government does, and any government does, any ministry
does. Government is very, very big business."
Harris asked about OPSEU 1995 warning
Premier Mike Harris said warnings from OPSEU in September,
1995, that layoffs could put public health at risk is "…the kind of
reaction I would expect from the union…"
Harris was questioned separately by Inquiry lawyer Paul
Cavalluzzo and OPSEU’s lawyer, Ian Roland, about the OPSEU press conference of
September 19, 1995.
OPSEU President Leah Casselman and Nancy Johnson, the chair of
the MOE’s employee relations committee, said that layoffs of ministry staff
"…poses a very real danger to public health." (OPSEU press release,
September 19, 1995.)
Cavalluzzo pointed out that the OPSEU press conference was one
of the warnings the government received early in its mandate about the planned
cuts to the MOE.
OPSEU later released a report in 1997, Nothing Left to Cut,
outlining the budget and staffing cuts at the ministry.
The Inquiry found that Linda Stevens, the MOE’s Deputy
Minister, sent the package from the 1995 press conference to top officials at
Cabinet Office and Management Board, and to Guy Giorno, the Premier’s top
communications aide.
Stevens’ accompanying memo said, in part: "OPSEU is
suggesting that the health of Ontarians is at risk. Budget cuts make it
difficult to enforce environment laws, and I have attached a copy of the note we
prepared for our Minister should she receive media inquiries at the Cabinet
retreat."
Harris said that he was likely briefed about the press
conference. He also said that he took OPSEU’s concerns seriously.
OPSEU’s lawyer, Ian Roland, asked Harris what concrete
action he took to follow up on the union’s concerns. Harris said he would have
asked senior ministry officials to make sure they were soliciting the concerns
of the staff when planning the cuts. When Roland pointed out that the ministry’s
own documents show that staff weren’t consulted about the cuts, Harris said he
couldn’t speak for senior officials at the ministry and who they consulted.
Accountable but blameless – huh?!
The headline in the Toronto Star, June 30, neatly summed up
the Premier’s testimony before the Inquiry: Accountable but blameless.
On the one hand, Harris said he is accountable for his
government actions. "I think I’ve made it very clear that I accept
accountability for actions, or lack of actions or changes that the government
made."
On the other hand, he refused to accept blame. "At no
time was any action taken by our government that I believe either jeopardized
the safety of the people of this province or of Walkerton."
Like his former environment ministers Norm Sterling and Brenda
Elliot before him, Harris would not concede that his government’s cuts were,
at least partially, to blame for the seven deaths and the more than two thousand
people who fell ill in Walkerton from drinking contaminated tap water in May,
2000.
A letter to the editor in the Globe and Mail, July 3, put it
well: "…it was quite clear that he and his government were prepared to
accept all responsibility short of actually accepting any responsibility at
all."
Judging from the media coverage following Harris’ testimony,
it appears that at least some members of the public and some media commentators
were not impressed with Harris’ answers to the Inquiry’s very pointed
questions. It remains to be seen what conclusions Justice O’Connor draws from
the Premier’s testimony. O’Connor submits his report to the government
before Christmas.
MOE staff receive warning notices
Commissioner O’Connor has refused to quash the warning
notices that the Inquiry has sent to three MOE staff.
The notices to Michelle Zillinger, John Earl and Larry
Struthers warn them that the Inquiry may make adverse findings about them. The
three staff, all OPSEU members, are represented by individual lawyers.
OPSEU supports the members. We believe the fundamental
explanation for the contamination of Walkerton’s water supply lie not with
individual actions, but with systemic shortcomings in the MOE and elsewhere.
Have your say in Thunder Bay and Walkerton
The Walkerton Inquiry will hold town hall meetings in Thunder
Bay and Walkerton on July 10 and 31, respectively.
Commissioner Dennis O’Connor wants to hear from the public
about their concerns about drinking water.
These town halls are a great opportunity for OPSEU members to
voice their concerns directly to Commissioner O’Connor.
If you want to make a presentation or
simply find out more, please contact Megan Park at mpark@opseu.org
Strengthen OCWA’s role as public water protector
OPSEU has submitted a paper to the Walkerton Inquiry showing
how the Harris government’s privatization policies prevent the Ontario Clean
Water Agency (OCWA) from playing its full role in protecting safe drinking
water.
The paper, Public Interests in
Water Facilities Operations .pdf 
, concludes
with twelve recommendations to support a safe drinking water system. OPSEU
maintains these recommendations can only be carried out through revitalizing
OCWA, not destroying it.
The Harris government has systematically undermined OCWA since
1995. It has removed its administration of water grants, forced the transfer of
its assets and, most recently, transferred key roles from OCWA to the overtly
political SuperBuild. This agency controls billions of infrastructure dollars
and is run by Harris’ former chief of staff and private consultants.
OCWA’s staff operate water and wastewater facilities for
municipalities that do not want to run their own waterworks department. OPSEU’s
paper provides evidence to the Inquiry that OCWA’s skilled and experienced
staff run safer operations even though they often run the smaller water systems
that are frequently plagued with problems.
OCWA wins contracts in open tendering processes against
private companies. If the Tories’ campaign to bleed OCWA is allowed to
succeed, these municipalities will be forced to contract with private water
companies to run their water plants.
OPSEU promotes the need for a stronger OCWA at roundtable meetings
OPSEU has continued to be an important player at the Inquiry’s
expert roundtable meetings in Part II of the Inquiry. Part II is dedicated to
finding solutions to ensure Ontario has safe drinking water in the future.
At a discussion on drinking water providers, OPSEU
representatives stressed the need for a Crown water agency as a part of an
overall safe drinking water strategy.
OPSEU reported evidence showing that OCWA’s staff, who tend
to operate the smaller water facilities that often experience water quality
problems, deliver higher quality water. The union pointed out that OCWA is the
largest waterworks organization in Canada. The smaller communities that rely on
OCWA benefit from this combination of scale and the skills and focus of its
employees on providing safe drinking water.
OPSEU recommended that OCWA be funded by the government to
develop new operational and training standards through a joint labour-management
mechanism for the benefit of all drinking water providers in Ontario.
OPSEU again promoted the value of the Crown agency at an
Inquiry meeting on financing. The union stressed the value of OCWA in ensuring
that MOE subsidies are allocated and spent appropriately and at the best value
to taxpayers. The government’s grants program to municipalities was stripped
from OCWA in 1996 and has been transferred to the politicized SuperBuild and
private consultants. OPSEU recommended that OCWA be enabled to create a capital
pool for municipal investment.
OPSEU has pointed out repeatedly that OCWA employees should be
permitted by the government to participate in the expert roundtables. Spurred by
OPSEU, the Inquiry has requested that OCWA employees attend the expert panels.
So far, this request has been blocked by government lawyers.
A crucial panel on public and private delivery of water
services will be held July 4th and 5th.
How to get in touch with us
To get on our e-mail list or talk to us about the
Inquiry, contact Megan Park at 1-800-268-7376 ext. 207 or mpark@opseu.org.
Check regularly www.opseu.org/walkerton/index.htm
and the Walkerton Inquiry website at www.walkertoninquiry.com.
Original authorized for distribution by Leah
Casselman, president.
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