Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Friday, April 20, 2012

Scientist mocks phone-in solution to disaster response following federal cuts

OTTAWA — Multimillion-dollar cuts to a team in charge of cleaning up environmental disasters is "an abrogation" of responsibilities that puts the health and safety of Canadians in jeopardy, says a retired Environment Canada scientist who co-ordinated national response to emergencies.

The government has slashed $3.78 million in funding to the response team, known officially as the Environmental Emergencies Program, choosing a "nationally co-ordinated model" that would provide advice "by phone" instead of on-the-ground support from regional offices.

Luke Trip, who managed the national centre that responded to oil and pipeline spills, toxic accidents and fires, train derailments, shipwrecks or marine disasters across the country, mocked the government's explanation, suggesting in an interview that the cuts would also be politically dangerous for the career of Environment Minister Peter Kent.

"We usually sent Environment Canada people out because they were called 'environmental emergencies,' " said Trip, 63, who now lives in a suburb west of Montreal. "Health Canada deals with 'health emergencies.' Agriculture deals with 'agricultural emergencies.' The Post Office deals with 'postal emergencies.' You catch my drift? To me, it seems it's an abrogation of responsibilities in the interest of saving money, I guess."

Adam Sweet, a spokesman for Kent, said the new emergency response approach, resulting from last month's federal budget, would allow the department to focus on "the most significant incidents, where it is needed the most."

He also said the emergencies program would continue to relay information to the department's enforcement branch when appropriate and that this division has received new investments in recent years.

But Trip said cuts to the emergencies program and other areas of research and monitoring are making Environment Canada an "insignificant" organization that is shedding its expertise needed to help local communities or stakeholders clean up after accidents.

"You have to have the databases, you have to have the background information available to do all of that (response assistance) and if these cuts are as significant as it it appears, where is that expertise going to reside?" asked Trip, who also did work as a response officer during a 33-year career with the department that ended in 2004. "Where is that information going to come from? Who's going to be developing these (computer) models that they're talking about (to predict impacts of accidents) if there are no resources to support that?"

He also slammed Kent's office for defending the government's approach by suggesting that "the majority of pollution incidents in Canada are small, with minimal impact on the environment."

"Small spills are cumulative and the impact is cumulative as well," said Trip. "If you have 10,000 small oil spills of 50 or 100 gallons, that adds up very, very quickly. So, to me, it's a folly to say that pollution incidents are small with minimal impacts on the environment. They are small, but they are many."

Trip also noted the environment minister could be held accountable in the aftermath of a disorganized response to a disaster.

"If the minister doesn't send his staff out in an emergency that is of federal jurisdiction, he may not have a job," Trip said. "Would the Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S., for example, not send someone out to that (BP Deepwater Horizon oil) blowout that they had in the Gulf of Mexico?"

Green party leader Elizabeth May noted that similar cuts in other jurisdictions have produced disasters such as the mad cow disease outbreak in the United Kingdom and the Walkerton water contamination tragedy in Ontario.

"Perhaps people who have to deal with a hazardous spill will in the middle of the night start googling 'oil spill' and see if they can find some expertise out there in cyberspace," said May, with tongue in cheek. "Regional environmental emergency response teams have existed like a SWAT team. You need to be there on site, you need to make expert assessments done by people with training who can then help the other local forces, whether they be the fire department, police or provincial environmental officials."

In many cases he dealt with in his career, Trip explained, local authorities or those responsible for the accident did not have the expertise to manage the risks and relied on Environment Canada's experts, as was the case following a December 1992 train derailment involving cars transporting dangerous goods near Winnipeg.

He explained that his team would also regularly provide updates and information to the federal minister, whether it was in the afternoon or the middle of the night.

But under the new system, the minister would be in the dark and unable to provide answers to key questions about public health and safety during an emergency, Trip suggested.

"So, hopefully, he'll have enough troops on the ground to respond to the needs of Canadians if something like that happens," Trip said. "Accidents are accidents, they happen and they're just not predictable at all and (as for) what's a justifiable expense to prepare for that, is up to the minister to decide."

Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Mike De Souza

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