Michael Cochrane, John Macnamara, Peter Victor

Task Force for the Environmental Bill of Rights

By Michael Cochrane, John Macnamara, Peter Victor
In the 1980s, environmental activists suspected that their concerns would be resolved faster if they had better access to the justice system. The Environmental Bill of Rights was designed to provide that.

In the 1980s, environmental activists believed that their concerns would be resolved faster if they could initiate their own legal actions.  Lawyers at the Canadian Environmental Law Association proposed a law called the Environmental Bill of Rights that would give citizens greater access to the justice system.  Over the years, many opposition politicians in the Ontario Legislature introduced a version of this bill, but none were passed.  Finally, in the 1990 election, the New Democratic Party made passing the bill part of their election platform. After they were elected, an Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR) that included some of the original features of these first bills was passed. The EBR has since become one of the province’s signature pieces of environmental legislation. It is important to recognize both the people who helped create the EBR and those who helped implement it.  In 1990, the then-Minister of Environment, Ruth Grier, appointed a task force that included representatives of the environmental and business communities and of the government.  They were asked to develop the EBR based on a number of principles:
  • the public's right to a healthy environment;
  • the enforcement of this right through improved access to the courts and/or tribunals, including an enhanced right to sue polluters;
  • increased public participation in environmental decision-making by government;
  • increased government responsibility and accountability for the environment;
  • greater protection for employees who "blow the whistle" on polluting employers.
  Michael Cochrane, who was a lawyer with the Ministry of the Attorney General, in his role as chairman of the Task Force on the Environmental Bill of Rights, led the Task Force through a series of meetings and often difficult discussions.   The EBR Task Force included Paul Muldoon from Pollution Probe and Rick Lindgren from the Canadian Environmental Law Association; Sally Marin, a lawyer from the Ministry of Environment; Andrew Roman, a lawyer from Miller Thompson; and John Macnamara, George Howse and  Bob Anderson, who represented different business associations.  (John Macnamara, who is participating in this session, represented the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.) Peter Victor, who also contributes to this session, was at the time the Assistant Deputy Minister of Policy in the Ministry of Environment, and was responsible for rolling out the provisions of the EBR.

The Task Force’s work

To begin their innovative work, Task Force members started with the principles that were given to them by the Minister. Over the course of several months and many meetings, they  discussed various ways to deliver these principles through the EBR. One of the most contentious issues was enhanced access to the courts and a citizen’s right to sue polluters.  The environmentalists argued that citizens should have the right to sue polluters if provincial environmental laws were not being applied or enforced. Businesses worried that they’d be harmed by an EBR that gave citizens an unrestricted right to sue. The Task Force eventually agreed to open up legal avenues to the public.  Citizens have the right to apply for leave to appeal certain Ministry decisions such as permits or licences or to apply for reviews of existing environmental laws.  Citizens were also given the right to apply for an investigation of any violation of an act, regulation or instrument and the right to sue a polluter for causing environmental harm to a public resource.

Technology and the EBR

Another EBR goal was the right for the public to participate in environmental decision making in the province and to have greater access to information. The solution that the Task Force proposed was an Environmental Registry where people could be notified about important laws and policies proposed by the government.  However, this was accomplished in a way that the EBR Task Force couldn’t have anticipated at the time. The first electronic registry was developed by staff of the Ministry of Environment who trained librarians across Ontario to provide members of the public with access to this EBR ‘bulletin board’.  Then, as personal computers increased Internet access, new opportunities for sharing government information dovetailed with the aspirations of the EBR.  Today, the Environmental Registry is a website where every Ontarian has the right to comment on proposed provincial environmental laws and regulations. Ministries must post certain proposed environmental laws and regulations for public comment. The Ministries’ Statements of Environmental Values are also posted on the registry. As well as developing the Registry, dedicated civil servants within the Ontario public service played a critical role in setting up the infrastructure underlying the EBR, coordinating its activities across the government Ministries covered by the legislation and ensuring the Act’s success.  In addition, Ministry of Environment staff were instrumental in extending the application of the EBR from the 4 Ministries proposed by the Task Force to the 13 now governed by the legislation. Another provision developed by the Task Force was protection for workers reporting environmental violations in their workplaces.  If someone "blows the whistle" on the unsafe environmental practices of their employer, they are protected under the EBR. It sounds fair and simple today, but before the EBR was passed in 1993, these environmental rights were not the law of the land. In order to meet the principle of making the government more accountable and providing oversight of their environmental activities, the Task Force proposed the appointment of an independent Environmental Commissioner.   When the legislation was accepted, a new office of the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario was created and run by staff of the Ministry of Environment until the first Commissioner was appointed. The current Commissioner, Gord Miller, developed this Environmental Beginnings series to commemorate the roots of environmentalism in Ontario and the pioneers in the movement. The thoughtful, systematic work of the EBR Task Force and its successful implementation by Ontario public servants involved gave citizens an Environmental Bill of Rights that has endured for 20 years, through several changes of government — continuing to make sure that Ontarians have the right to be involved in making sure our environment is protected.  
David Donnelly, Andrew Stewart, Bruce Lourie

How foundations helped build Canada’s environment movement

By David Donnelly, Andrew Stewart, Bruce Lourie
Canada’s grant-giving foundations played a seminal role in the origins of Canada’s environmental movement.

Canada’s grant-giving foundations have not only supported the arts and education, medical research and social causes. They also played a seminal role in the origins of Canada’s environmental movement. Our guests in this story reveal the hidden face of philanthropy and the part it played in the growth of the environmental movement in Canada. It all started with endangered spaces and species. During the 1960s and 70s, a number of Canadian charitable foundations were actively involved in conservation and land preservation work, providing substantial funds to the Nature Conservancy of Canada, the Federation of Ontario Naturalists and similar groups to buy key parcels of Canada’s natural heritage to protect them from development. There were also funds for assembling properties for future parkland, and protecting iconic endangered species. Foundations (in Canada) are charities that either undertake their own activities or fund others from the endowments contributed by wealthy individuals, families, corporations or communities. They receive funding from a variety of arm's length donors while the bulk of the funding of a private foundation comes from a person or group of people that control the charity. Fifty years ago, the major foundations active in the conservation field were, primarily, family run. While their generous (and much needed) donations reflected the personal passions of those families, they did not tend to challenge the land use decisions that were converting Canada’s greenspace and farmland into sprawling subdivisions. By the 1970s, times were changing. Several funders had begun to kick start the advocacy and reform work that became the hallmark of the young environmental movement. The Ivey Foundation donated the first $25,000 to get Pollution Probe off the ground. The McLean Foundation funded the Innu’s fight against low-level jet training by the Canadian military over Labrador. A number of foundations – including the Laidlaw, Gordon and McLain foundations – were funding organizations active in Arctic resource development issues. They also helped First Nations and environment groups prepare their expert cases before the Mackenzie Valley pipeline inquiry.
“[Through the 1980s,] environmental grant-giving was a mostly haphazard, ad hoc use of funds … The money ended up, in [too] many cases, in the wrong places at the wrong time.”
By the 1990s two things were becoming clear. First, environmental groups desperately needed more (and more sustainable) funding to maintain their advocacy work, especially in the face of austerity-minded and business-friendly governments busy rolling back their environmental programs. And second, the foundations needed to start working together in order to make their donations more strategic and much more effective. It was becoming increasingly difficult to see how all the individual grants fit into the larger picture. In 1995, representatives from a dozen foundations initiated the idea of a network of Canadian environmental grantmakers that would collaborate, share knowledge and work together to build an environmentally sound and sustainable future for Canadians. The Canadian Environmental Grantmakers’ Network (CEGN) opened an office in October 2000, and incorporated federally as a not-for-profit organization in 2001. Canadian foundations also supported the Sustainability Network to help environmental groups and other non-profits improve their management, leadership and organizational skills. Over the last ten years, foundations have been a central force in resurrecting a series of progressive land use initiatives. Sparked by the Walkerton drinking water tragedy, provincial governments began to reconsider their slash-and-burn approach to environmental protection. First, the Harris government brought in legislation to safeguard the Oak Ridges Moraine from urban development. Then, the McGuinty government, backed by the solid research and an extremely effective public relations campaign prepared by a coalition of environmental groups, brought in legislation to protect more than one million additional acres in a Greenbelt that extends from the Niagara Escarpment through the Moraine lands and north to the shores of Lake Simcoe.
“The foundations all brought not only money, but a spirit of wanting to get something done.
Today, foundations and funding programs are more important than ever, creating coalitions, forging partnerships, bringing new ways of thinking to the evolving environmental issues of the new millennium. Targeted donations are helping spark the green economy and building bridges between health professionals and environmentalists looking at the insidious impacts of toxics in the environment. The CEGN has grown to represent more than 65 private, community, public and corporate foundations, as well as government and corporate funding programs that provide over $50 million in environmental grants across Canada each year. Governments and large corporations have set up a number of funding projects to support environmental programs and objectives. For more information, see the Canada Revenue Agency webpage. For more information on many of Canada’s environmental grantmakers, visit the CEGN website at http://www.cegn.org.
Graham Scott, Rod McLeod, Gary Posen

Deputy Environment Ministers

By Graham Scott, Rod McLeod, Gary Posen
Graham Scott, Rod McLeod and Gary Posen all served as Deputy Environment Ministers. Acting for the governments they served, they brought in great changes, often fighting pitched battles from within.

Since the birth of the modern environmental movement in the late 1960s, there have been great advances in the way the environment is regarded and protected in Ontario. Public knowledge and expectations about fresh air, clean water and wilderness preservation have grown, while lawmakers and politicians have responded—most times effectively—with a series of environmental protection laws, regulations, policies and programs. The public pays less attention, though, to the behind-the-scenes work of the Deputy Ministers, the people responsible for shepherding these initiatives forward within the government and on their Ministers’ behalf. They are chosen for their administrative experience and skills, as well as their ability to serve as non-partisan executives, carrying out the policies and programs of the government of the day. Graham Scott, Rod McLeod and Gary Posen all served as Deputy Environment Ministers: Scott mostly for several Progressive Conservative Ministers (Harry Parrott, Keith Norton, Andy Brandt, Morley Kells and Susan Fish), McLeod for Liberal Jim Bradley when he was Minister in 1985 (Bradley was reappointed in 2011), and Posen for both Bradley in his first round as Environment Minister and for Ruth Grier, Bradley’s New Democratic Party successor. Acting for the governments they served, they ushered in great changes, often fighting pitched battles from within.

A Deputy’s role

A Deputy Minister is one of the most important—and least noticed jobs—in the Ontario government. This is a situation that most Deputies prefer; it allows them to be non-partisan and objective. Deputy Minister is also one of the highest ranking positions in the Ontario Public Service. As in all government ministries, the day-to-day operations of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment are handled by civil servants — scientists, engineers, lawyers, administrators, communications specialists, support staff and others — all overseen by the Deputy Minister. The Deputy Minister acts as Chief Operating Officer: his or her job is to make sure that the policies called for by the government and the Minister get done. The Deputy also provides advice, not only counsel on the best way to deal with an issue or to get something important done but also what the political consequences of taking (or not taking) action might be. This role has become particularly complicated for Deputy Environment Ministers in Ontario, due to the shifting and sometimes conflicting demands and expectations by different governments on environmental issues. In Graham Scott’s time as Deputy for the Ministry of the Environment (from 1979 to 1985), public interest in environmental issues exploded. High profile public issues that arose during his tenure included the 1979 train derailment in Mississauga (which forced a mass evacuation and prompted important transportation of dangerous goods legislation both nationally and provincially), acid rain, pollution in the Great Lakes, concerns about solid and hazardous waste management, the launch of the Ontario Waste Management Corporation, and the formation of the Ministry’s new Investigation and Enforcement Branch. The first calls for an Ontario “Environmental Bill of Rights” were also raised during this period. As Ontarians became more aware of and knowledgeable about environmental issues, they wanted better answers and responses from their provincial government.

Changing expectations

Another part of Scott’s job as Deputy was to understand and explain public anxiety over the environment. He had to determine for the Ministry whether public alarm over the issues was because they didn’t like the government’s policies, or simply because they were concerned about the environment. In 1985, the Liberal government of Premier David Peterson ended 42 consecutive years of Progressive Conservative rule in Ontario, defeating the minority PCs on a non-confidence motion and forming a new government with the support of the NDP. The Liberal party had advocated a number of activist environmental policies during the previous election campaign and, although they had narrowly lost to the PCs, the public seemed to like the Liberals’ focus on the environment. After the new Liberal government took control, Rod McLeod was appointed Deputy in part to act as a counterweight to Liberal Environment Minister Jim Bradley, who came in with an assertive agenda, an aggressive team of young policy advisors and assistants, and a mandate to get tough on polluters and to stop acid rain. That creative energy, with the competent leadership of the Deputy Minister’s office and the support of Ministry staff, resulted in some of the most important changes in environmental regulation in Ontario’s history, including: Countdown Acid Rain, a major program to curb smokestack emissions; the Municipal-Industrial Strategy for Abatement (MISA), regulating what flows into rivers and lakes from factories and sewage treatment plants; proclamation of the “Spills Bill” which amended the Environmental Protection Act to place more onerous financial responsibilities on those who own or use toxic chemicals; and innovative programs and policies aimed at biomedical, household, industrial and hazardous wastes, sewer discharges, and technology-based air emission controls. Gary Posen took over McLeod’s position as Deputy Minister in 1987. His job was to continue this balancing act at a politically sensitive time: the period after the 1987 election, when the previous joint government was replaced by a strong Liberal majority; again, in 1990, when the NDP formed the government; and later that same year, when Ontario was plunged along with the rest of the world into a deep recession. During the time these three Deputies served the province, the media was paying more attention to the issues, the environmental movement was becoming more sophisticated and the public was better informed—and more concerned—than ever before about our air, our water, our province and our planet. The Deputy Ministers did their work as professional administrators, quietly and without fanfare, during a period marked by political challenges, escalating environmental rhetoric and entrenched opposition to major regulatory change.
Ken Armson, Michael Innes, Rob Burgar

Chief Foresters of Ontario

By Ken Armson, Michael Innes, Rob Burgar
When visitors fly over Ontario, they are often surprised and delighted by how much of the province is covered by trees. Ontarians are justly proud of the province’s forests as a source of jobs and wealth. With the growth of environmentalism, Ontario’s forests are also a natural resource treasure that needs to be well managed.

Ken Armson was Ontario’s Provincial Forester and is now Chair of the Forest History Society of Ontario. Robert J. Burgar was Assistant Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Natural Resources. Michael Innes was a forester for the Ministry in both northern and southern Ontario before joining the Abitibi-Price paper company and then serving as Vice President, Environment for Abitibi-Bowater in Montreal before his retirement. Together these three foresters have amassed a huge base of knowledge and detailed stories about what they first encountered as young foresters and what they learned, which benefits everyone today. In 1994 the Crown Forest Sustainability Act (CFSA) was passed, reflecting newer thinking about forests, putting overall environmental considerations into forest management. However, foresters like Armson, Burgar and Innes were thinking about these issues long before the Act was passed. The same year, Minister of Natural Resources appointed a Council on Forest Sector Competitiveness made up of representatives from industry, municipalities, First Nations, environmental groups and independent advisors. The Council recommended establishing the position of Chief Forester to oversee the research and knowledge about our forests and how they are being managed (though no action was taken).

History of Forestry in Ontario

Forestry thinking had been evolving since European settlers began to flock to what was known as Upper Canada (now Ontario) beginning in the late 19th century and into the 20th. Before Canada became a nation on July 1, 1867, the forests were thought to be inexhaustible. In southern Ontario, settlers cleared land for farming and building towns and cities. Forests in northern Ontario seemed to be a vast and endless supply of timber that would always be there for the taking. Trees from Crown land (publicly-owned forests) could be harvested by any person or company licensed by the Crown. Ontario has more than 71 million hectares of forest, and 90 per cent of this is Crown forest. In the 19th century and most of the 20th century, the rights of Ontario’s First Nations as far as ownership and use of these forests was concerned was often neglected or ignored, a situation that is beginning to be addressed only now. In the late 1800s, the British Royal Navy reserved the right to take oak and timber for shipbuilding. By 1826 Ontario’s colonial rulers imposed a law: all species of trees could be cut, but anyone who harvested Crown forests had to pay a stumpage, or licence fee, to the government. A version of the stumpage system remains in effect to this day: Ontario’s forestry industry pays the province an average of $240 million a year for the use of Crown timber. By the end of the 19th century, as Ontario grew and the railroads were built, the public, governments and those involved in harvesting forests began to be concerned about new issues. Would there always be access to top-quality wood in Ontario? How do we protect forests from wildfires? What tree species are in Ontario’s different forests, and what’s the best way to replenish our forests? By 1900, many areas in southern Ontario had been cleared and improperly farmed on lands susceptible to erosion. Hard as it may be to imagine, parts of the province were being turned into desert — wildlife disappeared, rivers and wetlands dried up and the topsoil blew away. Other areas, denuded of trees, became susceptible to floods. In 1904, Edmund Zavitz, a lecturer in Forestry at the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph, surveyed these so-called “wastelands” and as a result of this a provincial nursery was opened at St. Williams in 1908 to provide trees for replanting such areas. This was the beginning of a major program of reforestation in southern Ontario. Many farmers listened and began planting trees, and the provincial government named Zavitz as one of Ontario’s first Provincial Foresters. (Zavitz succeeded Dr. Judson Clark as Provincial Forester, who served from 1905 to 1906.) In 1926, Zavitz became Ontario’s Deputy Minister of Forestry. By the mid-1940s, under Zavitz’s guidance, reforestation was an established practice. By the time of his death in 1968, one billion trees had been planted in Ontario — an additional two billion have been planted since then. One of Zavitz’s big acheivements was also to secure legislation preventing clear cutting on private land — a law that has done a lot to protect the province’s forest cover. Technology has been a part of forestry in Ontario since the days of Zavitz’s photographs. Until the airplane was perfected, the only way to survey Ontario’s forests was on the ground. As technology advanced through the 20th and into the 21st century, forestry, surveying and inventory taking of Ontario’s trees grew into a highly skilled, technical profession. Foresters used aerial surveillance, specialized film and digital photography. By the 1990s, mapping and detailed information gathering by remote sensing of forests and soil composition was completed using satellite data. Ontario’s foresters were at the vanguard of all these advances, and Armson (who served as Provincial Forester from 1986-89), Innes and Burgar are among those who have carried on Zavitz’s legacy. Though there is no formal position of Chief Forester in Ontario, experts like these continue to work hard to protect Ontario’s trees. They’ve looked at every aspect of forestry, travelling to other provinces and other timber-rich regions such as Scandinavia to compare practices, studying soils, tree species, harvesting and replenishing methods.

Educating the public

Perhaps most importantly, the foresters learned that dialogue was important. Most people in Ontario live far away from the province’s large Crown forests, and have little idea of what goes into forest management. The foresters understood that people had strong views about forestry values — regeneration, protecting wildlife, making sure areas are attractive for tourists and so on. Their task was to address the difficult questions, based on sound science and policy. What kind of regeneration is best? Who should pay for it? Who will do the work? Over time, they went from confrontations with environmentalists to a pattern of sitting down and seeing how they could reach consensus and agreement. In places like Simcoe County we can see the legacy of Ontario’s foresters; by championing the planting of trees they were successful in protecting the area from becoming windblown and lifeless. These important forestry experts laid the groundwork for the Forest Management Agreements under the Crown Forest Sustainability Act.  These agreements establish how Ontario’s timber is managed. They came about under an amended Crown Timber Act (CTA) of 1980, which established how Crown forests would be managed by the major licensees of Crown timber. The Crown Forest Sustainability Act in 1994 superseded the CTA. As Ken Armson says:
Only by being knowledgeable of the history of the use and development of our forests and the landscape and soils on which they occur can we make intelligent decisions about their current and future development and uses.

Ruth Grier, Paul Muldoon, Rick Lindgren

Birth of the Environmental Bill of Rights

By Ruth Grier, Paul Muldoon, Rick Lindgren
Bob Rae, former Ontario Premier; Bud Wildman, former Minister of Environment and Energy; and Ruth Grier, former Minister of Environment, at the proclamation of the Environmental Bill of Rights.

Ontario’s Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR) is a wholly original piece of legislation – a unique law driven by the aspirations of environmentalists and forged by political consensus.  In February 1994, its proclamation gave the citizens of Ontario new legal tools with which to protect the environment and demand greater accountability from government decision-makers.   Yet, the EBR that we know today took more than two decades to arrive at its present incarnation.

Early glimmerings

The first glimmerings came from south of the border where a 1970 bill enshrining environmental rights was passed in the Michigan Legislature.  Michigan’s law inspired two reform-minded lawyers, John Swaigen and David Estrin from the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA), to draw up a manifesto for their 1974 landmark book, Environment on Trial.  They proposed a broad set of rights for citizens ranging from environmental assessment to standing and access to information. Then, in 1979 with environment high in the polls, Stuart Smith, as Liberal opposition leader, asked CELA’s help in drafting an environmental bill of rights, which he introduced in the Ontario Legislature.  His bill was the first in a series of unsuccessful attempts throughout the 1980s to pass this legislation as a private members’ bill.   Both Liberal and New Democratic Party opposition members introduced versions of it on nine separate occasions, all of which were either defeated by the government in power or died on the order paper. Although none of them crystallized into legislation, Conservative and Liberal governments did pass important environmental laws, such as the Environmental Assessment Act in 1976 and the Intervenor Funding Project Act in 1988, which addressed various “rights” envisioned in the original Bill.

First steps in Ontario

The Environmental Bill of Rights that was finally passed took the first step to becoming a legislative reality in 1990 when Ruth Grier became Environment Minister for the newly-elected New Democratic Party (NDP) government.  The NDP had made an environmental bill of rights a key election promise, and expectations were high that Minister Grier would deliver on that promise.   The Minister, who was committed to the general concept of a bill, set up a stakeholder committee made up of diverse interests to recommend the specific content.  Initial attempts to decide on the legislation, however, ran into strong headwinds when the committee had difficulty coming to any agreement.  As a result, the fate of the bill was uncertain.  A different tack was proposed.

EBR Task Force

A smaller group designated as the Task Force on the Ontario Environmental Bill of Rights was set up to resolve the contentious issues.  The Task Force was made up of environmental lawyers, business representatives, and a lawyer from the government, who assumed responsibility for taking Task Force proposals back to their peers for discussion and approval. This was an innovative approach to the development of legislation and its outcome was unpredictable.  The process, which has been called a principled negotiation, had been tried only once before in the development of Ontario’s class action law.  Minister Grier made it clear to the Task Force that if they could not agree on a Bill of Rights, the Ministry of Environment would impose legislation that might or might not be acceptable to them.   She instructed them to incorporate specific rights into their proposed legislation; at the same time they were given free rein to decide what form these rights might take.  They included:
  • the public's right to a healthy environment;
  • the enforcement of this right through improved access to the courts and/or tribunals, including an enhanced right to sue polluters;
  • increased public participation in environmental decision-making by government;
  • increased government responsibility and accountability for the environment;
  • greater protection for employees who "blow the whistle" on polluting employers.
After 55 meetings and months of deliberations, the Task Force came to a consensus on the rationale and a draft Environmental Bill of Rights.  These were presented to the Minister in 1992.  Many of the original provisions were transformed into novel concepts that had not been anticipated – Ministry Statements of Environmental Values that were to be the equivalent of business plans, an Environmental Commissioner’s Office to ensure government accountability, an Environmental Registry that opened the doors for public input on Ministries’ permits, policies and legislation, and new rights to seek investigations and reviews of government decisions. The proposed bill was passed less than a year later in 1993 almost unchanged, with Bud Wildman, the new NDP Environment Minister, steering it through the Legislature.  Because of the way in which many disparate interests came together to create the Bill, it has had an enduring presence in the province and its provisions have given citizens a shared role in protecting Ontario’s environment.
Wolfgang Scheider, Norman Yan, Peter Dillon

Acid Rain Scientists

By Wolfgang Scheider, Norman Yan, Peter Dillon
This is the story about how scientists working in a small outpost in central Ontario found out about acid rain — and how their discoveries changed the world.

This is the story about how scientists working in a small outpost in central Ontario found out about acid rain — and how their discoveries changed the world. Thanks to the efforts of scientists like Wolfgang Scheider, Norman Yan and Peter Dillon, biologists employed by the Ontario government in the 1970s, we discovered how acid rain was affecting our environment, where it came from, and what could be done to control it. Today, people in Ontario, across Canada and around the world are familiar with the efforts to control emissions from industry and vehicles. These emissions caused rain and snow to turn acidic and affected the composition of lakes and rivers across North America. Both air quality and the acidic/alkaline balance in Ontario’s waterways have greatly improved thanks to emission control programs such as Countdown Acid Rain, the province’s aggressive regulations that curbed sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from industries and electric power plants. Many people are also familiar with the political battles that that took place to bring these improvements into place. The battles involved environmentalists, Ontario and other provincial governments, the federal government, the United States and the international community. The discovery of acid rain   The story of the scientific research into acid rain began in 1966. A University of Toronto biologist named Harold Harvey and his student Dick Beamish introduced 4,000 pink salmon into Lumsden Lake in Killarney Provincial Park, southwest of Sudbury, to see how fish stocks could survive and thrive in the area. The water in Lumsden Lake and other lakes nearby was remarkably clear. It was also downwind from sulphur dioxide emissions that blew from the huge smokestack at (then) Inco Ltd.’s Sudbury nickel smelter. Elsewhere, scientists Gene Likens in Hubbard Brook, New Hampshire and Svandt Oden in Sweden were also doing pioneering work in acid rain. A year after introducing the fish into Lumsden Lake, Harvey went back, but could not find a single fish he had left there. He came back year after year, and there were still no fish. In the late 1960s and early 70s, Harvey told his students at the university about his observations . Scheider, one of his biology students, remembers this was the first time he has heard anyone make the connection between long-range air pollution and changes to the water in lakes and rivers. At first people thought that the rising acid levels in Ontario lakes was a local problem. Gradually, through the efforts of scientists like Scheider, Yan and Dillon, they learned that it was due to the “long-range transport of atmospheric pollutants”, or LRTAP. As measurement technology and techniques improved, they could trace the sources of the pollutants more accurately, and they found that in many cases these materials came from airborne particles from smokestacks not just in nearby Sudbury, but from hundreds of kilometres away in southern Ontario and the U.S. Midwest. The media began to call this pollution acid rain, and the name stuck among scientists and the public. In the 1970s, Scheider, Yan and Dillon took to the wilderness to find out more about it. They headed to set up base in Dorset, Ontario, a city in scenic Muskoka, near Algonquin Provincial Park. There, they performed intensive site and lab work on lakes such as Plastic Lake in the area. What the scientists learned The Dorset-based scientists were able to show how pH levels in Ontario lakes were increasing drastically; within years, they could become tens and hundreds of times more acidic than they had been in the past. The scientists could also trace where the acid rain was coming from. In the Dorset area, 75 per cent of it came from the southwest, meaning it originated in the midwestern U.S., largely from industries and coal-burning power plants. At first, it was thought that the solution to neutralizing acidic lakes was simply to put more lime into the water. Indeed, this is what the scientists’ counterparts were doing in Sweden, and for a time a part of the three men’s work was to lug 36-kg (80 lbs.) bags of lime by the truckload to lakes in the Sudbury area, pick them up and dump them in. It was tiring, and futile. Soon, scientists and officials realized that the problem was bigger and more widespread than something that could be solved with bags of lime. There were too many lakes and rivers; the acidic lakes were not something that could be solved by a few people hauling around bags of lime. The pioneering scientific work of Scheider, Yan and Dillon and other Ontario scientists led to the political and environmentalist action that became Countdown Acid Rain [Ontario’s acid rain reduction program for industry and utilities] and brought down emission levels. Their studies of acid rain even led to wider research into more complex environmental problems, leading other scientists to look more deeply into toxic chemicals in the atmosphere and climate change. Today, though acid rain is still with us, the levels are much less than in the 1970s. Ontario is phasing out coal-fired power plants, and the emission levels of Inco in Sudbury, one of the major polluters in Ontario (now owned by Vale Corp.), are down by more than 90 per cent. This is a success story that we owe to these scientists. As Wolfgang Scheider says: “The story has many lessons for environmentalists today, including the length of time it may take to improve the quality of the environment due to earlier damages. We still have a way to go toward recovery in some lakes across Ontario. However, as this story demonstrates, concerted action by governments, industries and others, with support from the public can be successful.”
Gracia Janes, John Bacher, Elbert van Donkersgoed

Preserving Agricultural Lands

By Gracia Janes, John Bacher, Elbert van Donkersgoed
What happens when you take some of the most productive farmland in Ontario, add huge pressure to build on it, and then bring on hundreds of activists who are determined to protect the land? You get the Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society and the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario.

The Preservation of Agricultural Lands Society (PALS) and the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario (CFFO) — two groups that worked and fought together, to change the thinking of those who would allow the province’s farmland to be gobbled up by development. Gracia Janes and John Bacher of PALS and Elbert van Donkersgoed of the CFFO have been part of the work to protect farmland since Ontarians first started giving the issue serious attention in the 1970s. A Changing Landscape Up until then, southern Ontario was changing fast from a largely rural region into the now heavily populated area known as the Greater Golden Horseshoe. It stretches from the Niagara Peninsula to the eastern edge of the Greater Toronto Area and is home to more than 5 million people. As the population grew, so did clashes over land use. Cities and towns wanted to expand onto farmland, and some farmers were eager to sell pieces of their land for a large profit, to retire or seek other work. The planning rules were loose. For example, at the time, Ontario’s Planning Act allowed rural landowners to “checkerboard” their properties — break it up into small patches like a checkerboard and sell off these bits for houses, gas stations or strip malls. The effects can be seen to this day in areas where there are lines of small buildings beside roads, but farmers’ fields behind. The checkerboarded areas are not quite rural, but not built up enough for people to walk to as they would in a village or city. Municipalities also took advantage of weak planning to expand urban boundaries out into the farmlands. It seemed like this was Ontario’s future. Niagara’s fruit belt was particularly vulnerable — it’s a narrow strip of land near both the U.S. border and the heavily populated Toronto area, yet where the climate and soil makes it possible to grow superb tender fruit, such as peaches, cherries, plums and apricots as well as a variety of grapes. In the early 1950s, then-Premier Leslie Frost put it this way: "The fruit land of Niagara is doomed to vanish under industrial encroachment. We can't stop progress." By the mid- 1970s this prophecy seemed to be coming true, as Niagara was experiencing the fastest rate of sprawl in Canada. It didn’t happen that way, thanks in large part to the work of PALS and CFFO and their members. The change from rural to urban continues today, but there are safeguards, protected areas and tougher planning rules to preserve farmland from unbridled urban sprawl. Activism for farmlands PALS was formed in 1976 by ardent fruit land preservationists, such as NDP MPP Mel Swart and Brock University Professor Bob Hoover, as well as Janes, Bacher and 26 other founding members. They were backed by well-known University of Waterloo fruit land expert, Ralph Krueger, the Christian Farmers and more than 500 people from both rural and urban areas who were worried about swiftly vanishing fruit lands, a third of which were gone and a third under urban shadow. Farm members were worried about losing the land they needed to carry on their special type of farming. Rural people worried that their way of life would vanish and urbanites were concerned that there would be nothing but pavement and concrete in southern Ontario. PALS is based in Niagara, but has reached out over the years to help other farmland groups across Ontario and Canada protect prime farmlands. The CFFO was founded by a dozen Dutch immigrants in 1954 (van Donkersgoed joined later). It is part of an international movement to share good farming practices and ethical rural values. During the 1970s and 80s, membership grew to more than 600, and the organization became more involved in public policy, including support of PALS fruit land battles , and sharing the struggle to preserve prime farmland across Ontario. Shortly after PALS was formed, urban boundary expansions in Niagara that were proposed by municipal and regional governments led to PALS’ participation in two sets of Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) hearings from 1978 to1980. Through PALS’ intervention, the OMB ruled to protect nearly half of the 7,500 acres (3,035 hectares) of fruit land that was threatened by development. The Ontario Municipal Board is an agency to which citizens, groups or corporations can appeal to have planning decisions reviewed and possibly overturned. Its decisions can only be overruled by the Ontario Cabinet, which happens rarely. Today, many experts argue that the OMB has too much power, or that its authority should not apply to Toronto and other big urban areas. At the same time, the OMB has been used successfully by activists to fight for environmental causes — including by PALS. One of the most significant results of the PALS hearings was the OMB’s determination  of what were supposed to be permanent boundaries for urban development in Niagara .  These were first breached 20 years later, in 2001, with an OMB approval of nearly 600 acres of tender fruit land, which expanded the urban boundary of Fonthill. A few years later, the reaction to this loss led to enormous progress being made in Niagara and in prime farmland areas across the Province, as the 2005 Greenbelt Act was enacted. It set out areas that can and cannot be developed within an area of southern Ontario the size of Prince Edward Island. While boundaries could be changed by future governments, now it would require government review and public input to change them. These boundaries aren’t set in stone, but they do designate the areas set out for fruit lands and other agriculture. Teaching and learning Perhaps most importantly, in addition to saving 3,400 acres of tender fruit and grape lands in Niagara by speaking up at OMB hearings, the people who fought — and still fight — to protect farmlands have done a lot to educate both the public and lawmakers. They successfully prevented a huge toxic waste site from being built in the West Lincoln area of the Niagara Peninsula, and in 1994 they persuaded the New Democratic Party government (of then-Premier Bob Rae) to bring in a Niagara Tender Fruit Land Program, under which farmers would be paid to place restrictive covenants on tender fruit lands to preserve them in perpetuity. This Niagara Tender Fruit Land Program was cancelled almost immediately by the development-minded Progressive Conservative government of Mike Harris a year later, putting farmland again at the mercy of developers. But ironically, the Harris government later took steps to preserve land in a different area under development pressure, the Oak Ridges Moraine north of Toronto, using restrictive covenants. Today, 85 per cent of Ontario’s tender fruit production and 80 per cent of Ontario’s grapes are grown in Niagara, and the region is an award-winning wine-producing area, thanks in large part to the people who got involved in OMB hearings, developed policy papers, organized their friends and neighbours and helped educate Ontarians about farm land. They don’t consider their work finished. Laws and policies to protect agriculture are in place, but he Greenbelt Plan is up for review in 2015 and there are many, growing urban pressures. We must remember that once the concrete is poured on farmland, it’s not farmland anymore. That is why PALS and its supporters continue to press the government for a proven voluntary land protection program – the use of restrictive covenants to save tender fruit and grape lands for future generations of farmers and urbanites.
Jim Bradley, David Oved, Sarah Rang

Environment Minister Jim Bradley — 1985-90

By Jim Bradley, David Oved, Sarah Rang
By 1985, Ontarians were concerned about environmental issues that they had barely known about a decade earlier - acid rain, toxic chemicals in the water, industrial and sewage discharges and many more. Here, Jim Bradley and some his staff discuss how some problems were resolved.

When Jim Bradley became Ontario's Minister of the Environment in 1985, after seven years as an opposition Member of Provincial Parliament, a lot of people were surprised that he wanted that particular job, which had been a minor cabinet post until then. Environmentalists and many Ontarians were surprised when he brought so many changes to environmental protection so quickly, and Bradley himself was surprised at how much he needed to do in a short time. By 1985, people around the world had learned a lot about threats to the environment. In Ontario, the public was concerned about emerging issues that they had barely known about a decade earlier - acid rain, toxic chemicals in the water, industrial and sewage discharges and what seemed to be never-ending excuses from polluters. When Bradley took office, it was more than a decade after groups like Greenpeace and Pollution Probe were established and 15 years after the first Earth Day. Ontarians were ready for more action on the environment.

Building a team for the environment

Sometimes new premiers' offices assign staff to ministers. but Bradley's boss, Premier David Peterson, gave the new environment minister wide latitude to take action, and allowed him to build his team. Bradley recruited Mark Rudolph (who was working with the federal environment minister at the time) as his Chief of Staff, and Gary Gallon as his Senior Policy Advisor. Gallon, who passed away in 2003, was a former Ontario Liberal researcher with deep roots in the environmental movement who had served on the first Greenpeace Board of Directors. He brought in David Oved (a former Queen's Park reporter) as his Press Secretary. Later, he hired Sarah Rang as a Policy Advisor. Bradley and his team proceeded to shake up environmental politics and policy in Ontario as never had been done before. It seemed as though every month, everywhere, there was a new environmental battle to be fought. The issues became top news, highlighted on the front pages of the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, and other media outlets across the province. As Bradley notes there was no Environmental Commissioner of Ontario's office in the 1980s, so it was important for activists to raise awareness of environmental issues through the media. One of the first actions from Bradley's team was to proclaim Ontario's Spills Bill, a law governing chemical spills that had been passed by the previous government but never proclaimed (a law must be proclaimed for it to take effect). Industries, truckers and farmers didn't like this law. Under the bill, when there was a spill, the onus was on the spiller to protect the environment by cleaning it up first -- and determining ultimate legal liability later. Bradley worked with experts in the insurance industry to prompt establishment of a spills liability insurance "facility" - a pool of funds, contributed by industry, to pay for cleaning up spills.

Bradley's Environmental Battles

Even within the government there were environmental struggles to contend with. As Environment Minister, Bradley fought internally to stop plans by the Ministry of Transportation to build a highway through Rouge River Valley (where Canada's first urban national park is now being created). He took on Ontario Hydro's resistance to controlling acid rain pollution caused by its coal-fired power plants. (Coal is now being phased out at power plants across Ontario.) Bradley also discovered that there were pollution problems creeping up along waterways and borders all around and through Ontario. In the St. Clair River, a "blob" of cancer-linked dioxin was discovered just offshore from the Dow Chemical Company in Sarnia. In many cases, companies had received permission from local Ministry of the Environment officials to discharge chemicals into the water. In some cases they did it without permission, and officials did little to enforce the rules. To put an end to these kinds of loose water pollution practices, Bradley cracked down with much tougher pollution control orders and set up the ministry's own environmental police force (now part of the Ministry of the Environment's Operations Division). Eventually, Bradley brought in a province-wide regulatory system ("Municipal/Industrial Strategy for Abatement") that set limits on every company that discharges into waterways. Bradley was also responsible for the introduction of the Blue Box recycling program, and for banning notoriously dirty-burning apartment building incinerators - up until the 1980s, apartment residents dumped their garbage down incinerator chutes and there was virtually no control over what chemicals came out from those apartment chimneys. Some of the most exciting and important advances in environmental protection in this period took place across provincial and international borders. Bradley met friends and foes alike in Congress and statehouses on cross-border issues such as acid rain and the Great Lakes, and he worked extensively with our federal government and his counterparts in Quebec, Manitoba and Atlantic and Western Canada. During Bradley's term as Minister of the Environment in the 1980s (he was appointed again as Minister in 2011), issues that have taken centre stage today were just beginning to emerge. For example, climate change was just beginning to raise concerns (the first international conference on the subject was held in Toronto in 1988). Bradley, along with Oved, Rang, Rudolph and Gallon, left a legacy for environmental change.
Bud Wildman, David Balsillie, Marty Donkevoort

Crown Forest Sustainability Act

By Bud Wildman, David Balsillie, Marty Donkevoort
The first line of the Crown Forest Sustainability Act sets the direction: “…to manage Crown forests to meet social, economic and environmental needs of present and future generations.” Listen to the story learn about how the act got put into place.

The Crown Forest Sustainability Act (CFSA), passed in 1994, brought new thinking to the way Ontario’s forests are managed. Up to the 1990s, Ontario’s Crown forests (forests on publicly owned land) were thought of mostly as a commodity. Protecting the forests’ waters, air quality, wildlife, recreation and tourism use and aboriginal rights, while considered, took a back seat. It’s an important point, because Ontario has more than 71 million hectares of forest, and 90 per cent of this is Crown forest. The CSFA put environmental considerations into forest management. It came into being after years of hard work. Much of it was done by C. J. (Bud) Wildman, the Minister of Natural Resources and Minister Responsible for Native Affairs from October 1990 to February 1993. He worked closely with Assistant Deputy Minister David Balsillie and Policy Advisor Marty Donkevoort. Background Between 1965 and 1994, the average yearly area logged in Ontario had gone up more than 50 per cent, to nearly 210,000 hectares. During that time period, the actual timber harvested on Crown land more than doubled from 10 million cubic metres of wood cut from an area of 1,000 hectares of forest, to nearly 21 million cubic metres from 2,100 hectares. Worse, the use of clearcutting kept growing. In the 1970s, about 70 per cent of Ontario’s forest harvests were clearcut. By the 1990s this jumped to 91 per cent. Clearly, this wasn’t sustainable. As unthinkable as it may seem, if soxmething didn't change, Ontario could eventually run out of harvestable, renewable forests. Previous ministers and governments had considered this problem with varying interest and attention, but the mind-set was to put the short term needs of forest companies for product — trees to be cut — before protection or renewal and long term interests. Bud Wildman and the MNR reform When Wildman took office as minister, Ontario’s forests were regulated by 28 forest management agreements, covering 70 per cent of Crown forests. He represented the Northern Ontario riding of Algoma for the New Democratic Party (NDP), knew the forests and the forestry industry well. He was determined from the day of his appointment to bring change to the Natural Resources ministry and the way it managed forests, to make sustainability a priority that would have to be considered in every decision. The concept of ‘sustainable development’ was recent; the phrase had been coined only in 1987, in a United Nations report called Our Common Future or the Brundtland Report, which firmly placed environmental issues on the world’s political agenda. It was important that everyone understood where Ontario was going, and that the industry understood that sustainability was ultimately better for its bottom line. The MNR staff was highly professional and had some of the most experienced forestry experts in the world, but under the rules at the time, the forest industry (not the ministry) was responsible for making sure that forests were being regenerated. Since the Crown, not the industry, actually owned the forests, the industry’s priority was to get permission to harvest as many trees as possible. The mindset of the ministry staff, and virtually all ministers up to this time, was to follow the rules and make tree-cutting, not sustainability, the priority. Wildman wanted to change this. There weren’t enough trees being regenerated. In many of the unregenerated forests, ‘weeds’ like birch and poplar trees were growing. Altering the tree species affects the type of insects and plant life in the forests, as well as the soil, the water, and ultimately the fish and all other wildlife. This not only affects the forests, but also the biodiversity, fish and wildlife habitats, recreation, tourism, spiritual and heritage values of our forests. Wildman felt that Ontario had to move to a holistic approach to forest management, taking all of these values and interests into account. He knew there were a lot of mid-level staff and field workers in his ministry who shared his concerns. They would support figuring out better ways to protect Ontario’s Crown forests. He also knew he needed to act fast, because changing the MNR and its forestry practices would take a long time (it did take nearly the whole term of the NDP government) and there would likely be unforeseen obstacles. The unforeseen obstacle came quickly when the NDP government, elected in September 1990, soon discovered it was broke. Wildman was told he wouldn’t have enough money for a major forestry audit— Ontario’s first. This was important because the Ministry assessments of the state of our forests were out-of-date. So despite the lack of cash, Wildman and his team found a way to do the audit anyway, through a comprehensive program, known as the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. The Crown Forest Sustainability Act - Now The Act was finally passed in 1994 (last updated in 2003). It sets detailed rules for how Crown forests are to be managed, in terms of access, maintenance, renewal and planning — rules that are binding on the MNR and everyone else. It incorporated the majority of the recommendations of the Class Environmental Assessment on Forest Management and covers the entire province but primarily affects the North, where most of Ontario’s Crown forest is located. The result is a system that has everyone thinking more holistically about forests. The CFSA and the talks that preceded it also involved more detailed discussions with Ontario’s First Nations than had taken place in the past — a dialogue that is still evolving. Today, thanks to the CFSA, there is a more clear, explicit idea of what is expected — the limits to harvesting Crown forests, when it’s appropriate to allow development and roads and when it’s not, and most importantly, the need to make sure that forests that are harvested are properly regenerated. Although disagreements still come up over issues (such as road building and development), the Act allows them to be considered during the planning stage, so they can be considered with sustainability in mind. Thinking has changed across Canada about forestry. In 2010, nine environmental groups signed the historic Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, aimed at working together. There are still ups and downs — environmentalists and loggers hit an impasse over this agreement in 2013. But Ontario’s Crown Forest Sustainability Act set the trend for the new way of looking at forests as a legacy worth sustaining. Wildman and his colleagues worried that the Crown Forest Sustainability Act would not survive after the government changed hands. But it has changed hands several times and the law is still there. Ontario’s thinking about sustainability has changed too.
David Peterson, Mark Rudolph, Jan Whitelaw

The Peterson Years

By David Peterson, Mark Rudolph, Jan Whitelaw
The 1980s was a decade of great change for environmentalism — around the world and very much so in Ontario. This became particularly evident after June 26, 1985, the day David Peterson was sworn in as Ontario’s 20th premier, leading the first Ontario Liberal government in 42 years.

For the next two years, Peterson led a minority government at Queen’s Park, under an unprecedented Accord reached with the opposition New Democratic Party. The Liberals actually had fewer seats (48 Liberal to 52 Conservative) than the Progressive Conservatives who had held power, but they managed to form a government with support from the NDP (who had 25 seats) under the accord, and took office with an ambitious program for environmental change. By mid-1985 the environment had already become a top-of-mind issue for Ontarians. In the spring election campaign that led to his premiership, a spill of toxic PCBs from a truck on a northern Ontario road had become a major talking point. It escalated when a pregnant woman in a car behind the truck expressed concern; the Progressive Conservative environment minister quipped that she should not worry unless she was “a rat” licking the highway. The public was not amused and it became a significant election issue. Ontario’s Environment — Under New Management Peterson appointed Jim Bradley (MPP for St. Catharines, a seat he still holds), as Minister of the Environment. He also hired staff members who were committed to moving fast on the environmental issues of the day, including Mark Rudolph, David Oved and Gary Gallon. In his own office, Peterson hired Jan Whitelaw as a senior policy advisor. Mark Rudolph had worked with the Liberals in opposition at Queen’s Park and as Chief of Staff to the federal environment minister (Charles Caccia) in Ottawa. Shortly after Rudolph joined Peterson’s government, he became Bradley’s chief of staff at the Ministry of the Environment. He worked closely with Gallon (who passed away in 2003), Bradley’s Senior Policy Advisor, also a Liberal staff member and a founder of Greenpeace. The office team was rounded out by David Oved, a former journalist who became Bradley’s press secretary, and Julia Langer who was the Junior Policy Advisor. To say that there was good chemistry among the staff is perhaps an understatement — Rudolph and Whitelaw later married, had three boys and they still work together in the private sector on environmental issues. Changes in the Environment When Peterson came to power, some Ontarians were surprised at the speed of change in the environment file. As Peterson notes, for decades the Ontario Liberals were a small-c conservative party. He credits his predecessor, Stuart Smith (Liberal Party leader from 1976 to 1982), with moving the party forward, in part by hiring people like Rudolph and Gallon to work in the opposition. To deliver their election promise of change, Peterson and Bradley moved fast. The budget for Ministry of the Environment more than doubled, from $300 million per year under the previous Progressive Conservative government to more than $700 million (by comparison, Ontario’s 2013-14 budget estimate for the Ministry of the Environment is $495 million). Their staffers found that in addition to dealing with toxic spills, they had a ready-made list of big environmental issues to contend with right away. At the top of the list was acid rain (rain that turned acidic when combined with sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides). These two chemicals spewed from Ontario Hydro coal-burning power plants, Inco’s Sudbury nickel smelter and the tailpipes of cars and trucks across Ontario. Acid rain was killing lakes and trees ,threatened human health and had become a continent-sized pollution problem. Determined to solve the issue, Peterson gave Bradley the okay to act quickly and bring in Countdown Acid Rain, an aggressive pollution reduction program. (The acid rain story is told in more detail elsewhere in this Beginnings series.) Vale Corp. (Inco’s successor in Sudbury), credits acid rain controls for giving the company the conditions to cut pollution by more than 90 per cent and make a profit by doing so. Taking on the tough environmental issues In the 1980s, Rudolph, Whitelaw, Gallon and others had to work tirelessly and seamlessly to negotiate with the polluters as their mandate from Peterson and Bradley was to hold firm to protect the environment Within six months of holding office, Peterson, Bradley and their team proclaimed a Spills Bill that could deal with incidents like the PCB spill (it had been passed by the previous government but never proclaimed as law) and took the steps that led to the world’s first Blue Box recycling program across Ontario. The Peterson government also dealt with contentious issues that concerned people across Ontario, including a noxious pollution flowing into Lake Superior from a pulp and paper plant (then owned by Kimberly-Clark) at Terrace Bay, and pressure to log the old growth forests in Temagami, right next to a provincial park. They also implemented MISA (the Municipal/Industrial Strategy for Abatement – an industrial waterways clean-up program, Lifelines (a municipal water and sewage infrastructure enhancement program), an improved Parks Policy Book, and the start of the creation of the Rouge Park. Nevertheless, the environmental philosophy of Rudolph, Whitelaw, Gallon and others — with backing by Peterson and Bradley — was to look at the bigger picture. It’s a philosophy that’s second nature to anyone who thinks seriously about the environment today, but it represented new thinking in the 80s. They didn’t get everything done — for example, in opposition the Liberals had pushed for an environmental bill of rights (under which the Environmental Commissioner’s office was eventually established), but they never moved forward with the legislation during their time in office from 1985 to 1990. This was part of the “tradeoff” they undertook as they looked at the “bigger picture”. Today, Peterson calls what his government achieved on the environment simply “doing a good job.” And Bradley, the longest serving MPP now at Queen’s Park (as of 2013), is still on the job, serving as environment minister again since 2011.