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February 9, 2001
OPSEU report to Inquiry will provide an
alternative vision of the MOE
MOE members of OPSEU are preparing a report that will provide the Walkerton
Inquiry with an alternative vision of the MOE to the Val Gibbons’ report
released Wednesday.
Members have told us that they want the MOE strengthened and renewed so that
it can better fulfill its mandate to regulate and enforce the safety of drinking
water in Ontario OPSEU’s report will put forward recommendations from
front-line MOE staff who currently carry out this mandate.
The Managing the Environment report written by management consultant
Val Gibbons, available on MOE’s website:
http://www.ene.gov.on.ca/envision/ergreport/index.htm,
calls for the MOE to do less and instead "share" and
"delegate" its responsibility for environmental protection with
municipalities and industry.
This vision for the MOE has been criticized by environmental groups, notably
the Canadian Environmental Law Association, since the report was released
Wednesday.
The Premier said Feb. 7 that the Gibbons report will be submitted to Justice
O’Connor "so he can include it in his deliberations in the Walkerton
Inquiry". OPSEU hopes to complete its report for the Inquiry no later than
mid-April. It will be posted on both the Inquiry’s and OPSEU’s website for
comment by OPSEU members and the general public
A project team of MOE members has been hard at work since November developing
the report. It will draw on comments received from members in surveys done last
summer and in December. As well, the project team plans to hold focus groups
with MOE staff in six locations across the province towards the end of February.
We’ll get the information out to members when plans are finalized.
For OPSEU’s preliminary analysis of the Val Gibbons report, please go to: http://www.opseu.org/walkerton/gibbons.htm
Next phase of Inquiry to look at government’s
role
Government policies, procedures and practices come under the spotlight in the
next phase of the Inquiry to start March 5. Commission lawyers circulated the
list of issues it plans to examine for comment from parties with standing,
including OPSEU, in early January. We put the issues list on our website and
circulated it to members. We made some suggestions for additions and they were
reflected in the Commission’s revised list.
It’s clear from the list that the Commission plans a comprehensive look at
all the relevant issues. A number of them are of particular interest to OPSEU
members. They include: capacity and capability of private laboratories; changes
to legal and operations regimes which may have affected Walkerton; staff
reductions generally; staff reductions in staff responsible for water; and
recruitment, retention and morale of staff.
We have also given the Commission suggestions for witnesses to call.
Elizabeth Witmer called best person to push through
privatization of OCWA
Elizabeth Witmer was appointed Minister of Environment earlier this week. The
former Minister of Health has always been considered a moderate in Premier
Harris’ cabinet. Columnist John Ibbitson in today’s Globe and Mail reminds
us that it was Witmer’s job at Health to implement the recommendations of the
Health Services Restructuring Commission. In other words, to close hospitals.
Ibbitson speculates this background makes Witmer a good choice to push
through the govenrment’s plans to privatize water and sewage plants, including
those currently operated by the Ontario Clean Water Agency (OCWA).
Walkerton is about more than the ineptitude of the Koebels
As we’ve already heard at the Inquiry and will find out more in its next
phase, a number of factors contributed to the contamination of Walkerton’s
water supply last spring with E. coli. Although it’s tempting to simply blame
the tragedy on the appalling incompetence of Stan and Frank Koebel, it doesn’t
tell the whole story.
We heard shocking evidence in December about the Koebels’ lack of training,
falsifying of records, sending fake water samples to the Ministry of
Environment, and in the case of Frank Koebel, drinking on the job.
We’ve also heard evidence that shows the tragedy was due to more than the
ineptitude of the Koebels or the fact that the chlorinator at Well #5 was
malfunctioning. Health Canada epidemiologist Dr. Andrea Ellis testified January
11 that scientists recommend a "multiple barrier approach" to keeping
the water safe, so that there are "multiple things protecting it".
It is becoming clear from the Inquiry that these multiple protections were
not in place in Walkerton. Many of them have at their root the drastic
downsizing and offloading of responsibilities at the Ministry of Environment
(MOE). The privatization of the lab testing is one such issue. Phil Bye, the
supervisor of MOE’s Owen Sound Office, testified October 25 that
municipalities in 1997, including Walkerton, weren’t complying with the
ministry’s minimum sampling requirements because of the cost to do the
sampling ($3,000 to $5,000 per well).
The issue of private labs as well as many other systemic problems at the MOE
will be examined in more detail in the next phase. Once these systemic issues
are explained and examined, we’ll get a more accurate picture of how the
Walkerton tragedy came about.
Please post and distribute the
pipeline
Distribution is by e-mail only to members on our e-mail list, so please make
copies for OPSEU members in your workplace and/or post the pipeline on
your union bulletin board.
We have attempted to get one e-mail contact for each MOE and OCWA workplace.
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 official Inquiry
website at
www.walkertoninquiry.com.
Return to Walkerton
Inquiry Index Page
