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According to a new study, Canada's most populated province is in for more environmental crises over the next three years, thanks to Premier Mike Harris’ failure to integrate environmental values into the core business plans of his government’s 13 ministries. "In a year that has seen six dead in Walkerton from contaminated water, booming hazardous waste imports, and a plan to dump Toronto’s garbage in a leaking pit, it’s hard to imagine how things could get worse," says Janet Pelley, chair of Toronto’s Sierra Club chapter. "But they will, if Premier Harris doesn’t clean up his act," she adds. This dire warning is based on a new report from the Ontario Centre for Sustainability, a Toronto-based not-for-profit research

centre on environmental planning and communications. Missing Values 2000 reviews the business plans of 13 ministries that are required by the Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR) to consider the environment "whenever decisions that might significantly affect the environment are made in the ministry". Much like the current government’s Taxpayer Protection and Balanced Budget Act, the EBR binds governments to a responsible course of action. The report demonstrates that for the fifth year in a row, the government has failed to address environmental concerns at the earliest planning stages. "These omissions have had tragic results for the province," Pelley says. Because the province abandoned its oversight of water treatment, six people died and 2000 became ill from drinking the water in Walkerton. Ontario is now the leading recipient of hazardous waste that is too dangerous to dispose of in the U.S., thanks to lax provincial regulations. The provincial government has chosen to look the other way as Toronto plans to dump its garbage in the leaking Adams Mine, threatening local groundwater with contaminated leachate. Harris and his ministries have washed their hands of any responsibility for fostering smart, sustainable growth, allowing the Oak Ridges Moraine to be paved over with strip malls. Nine of the thirteen ministries reviewed failed to give adequate consideration to the environment. The remaining four received a caution. Overall, Missing Values identifies nearly 150 statements that have the potential to affect the health of the environment, including 62 failures to consider environmental values, 50 instances where government commitments could lead to significant environmental impacts and 37 EBR-friendly statements, where the commitment supports a healthy environment. In the introduction to the report, author Chris Winter notes that the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs has only recently reintroduced environmental commitments into its business plan, and that in 1998 it had changed its revised its Statement of Environmental Values to remove any direct reference to environmental issues. When viewed with the ministry’s pro-development approach to rural areas, it is of little surprise the ministry was ill-prepared to handle the Walkerton water crisis. "Clearly, the lack of provincial leadership on the environment has allowed for situations like Walkerton, Adams Mine, and the development of the Oak Ridges Moraine to occur," says Winter. "This government is facing several environmental crises that are largely the result of bad planning." The report documents how the government’s environmental problems run deep within all ministries, and that they are a result of its overriding emphasis on economic growth and less government. "This is not just the Ministry of the Environment’s problem," says Winter. "It’s a government-wide problem and it reflects the failure of the Management Board of Cabinet to ensure that all ministries consider the environment in their activities."