Senate fogeys awakened from slumber

The Canadian Senate might just be useful after all.

The House of Commons recently passed a watered-down revision of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (Bill C-32), but local eco-activists are mounting a pressure campaign aimed at persuading the Senate to broaden public hearings on the bill and to restore some of its strengths.

Judy Bock, a longtime TMR eco-activist, says senators are being inundated with e-mails, faxes and letters from Montreal and elsewhere. "We're already having an impact. Some Liberal senators are getting a little bit exasperated," she says. The Senate has the power to send Bill C-32 back to the Commons with recommended changes.

Critics note that Liberal and Reform MPs softened many of Bill C-32's stronger provisions. "It protects the health of industry more than our health," says STOP's Don Wedge. "The government cannot apply the precautionary principle [forcing industries to reduce their use and emissions of toxic chemicals] unless it's cost-effective to do so."

Daniel Green of Société pour Vaincre la Pollution (SVP) describes that approach as "environmental management by bean-counters." Asks Green: "What is the cost-effectiveness of having sick new-borns, children with lower IQs or men who can't procreate because of low sperm count?"

--Wayne Hiltz