"Canada's environmental watch dog shammed the federal government Tuesday for poor accountability and management of more than $9 billion dollars set aside for a range of climate-changing measures that he said would fall short of meeting the country's latest international commitments.
This quote comes from an article entitled, "$9B hasn't done much so far"", which I found in the Wednesday, October 6th,2011 edition of the Edmonton Journal newspaper. To read this article please click on the highlighted words in the last sentence.
It is news articles like this one, which indicate why citizens of the country of Canada do not trust politicians and the the bureaucracies they have created! If a Government cannot handle the irresponsibility of using and monitoring such a large sum of taxpayer money, is it any wonder why so many citizens of Canada have become apathetic towards politicians and loathe them? Not only has a great deal of money gone up in smoke, money which could have been used to help mitigate some of the social problems in our country, but public trust in the Harper government and its bureaucracy has once again been reduced even further! Of course the real important thing, the fact that climate-changing measures are not in place to reduce the impact of activity of Canadians and their economy, mean that Canadians can expect to be ridiculed and criticized by people in other countries and their governments! And what is worse is these "new" warnings about cumulative impacts of oilsands development in Western Canada! According to the article, "011 October Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development" which you can read by clicking on the following link:http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/parl_cesd_201110_00_e_35759.html ,
"For over a decade, Environment Canada and Fisheries and Oceans Canada have warned that key environmental information regarding the effects of oil sands projects has been missing. Since 1999, both federal departments have warned that insufficient environmental information makes it impossible to understand the combined impact of projects in the lower Athabasca region and the impact on ecosystems that are farther away, including the wider Mackenzie Basin of the Northwest Territories. In the absence of this information, it is impossible to track environmental changes over time.During our audit, we found that, despite repeated warnings of gaps in environmental information, little was done for almost a decade to close many of those key information gaps."
As taxpayers of this country we citizens have a right to know why this "key environmental information" is missing, especially since billion dollars of our money has now been spent!! The article continues in this fashion:
"However, uncertainty persists about other environmental trends, because of insufficient or inadequate environmental monitoring systems. Some of the environmental threats causing these trends include airborne toxic substances and their long-term impact on freshwater quality and wildlife, including the potential downstream impact. As a consequence, decisions about oil sands projects have been based on incomplete, poor, or non-existent environmental information that has, in turn, led to poorly informed decisions."
The citizens of this country want to know why these environmental monitoring systems are not adequate for the job, especially since this means that the health of humans, and other animal and plant species could now be at risk due to the activities of the Oilsands industry, and especially because 9 billion dollars of our money has been thrown away!!!
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