GOVERNMENT MINISTRIES CANADIAN STYLE

I received an e-mail yesterday from Ecojustice out of Toronto. This is an environmental/legal group who like to put provincial and federal governments feet to the legal fires. Their issues usually revolve around the vast disparity between the environmental laws that governments pass versus the actual on the ground reality. In this particular case they sucessfully sued the federal government in regards to its' failure to implement its' own engangered species legislation. The two Ministries at fault were Natural Resources and surprise surprise the federal Environment Ministry. In fact quoting Justice Anne L. Mactavish "There is clearly an enormous systemic problem within the relevant Ministries...".

Systemic problems within government ministries arise when the government has little or no intention of actually following through on a goal or purpose that they themselves realize has popular support. Thus while governments at all levels give lip service to protection of our air, water, soil and endangered species; the reality is that they are beholden to vested financial interests who gleefully pocket (privatize) their profits while socializing (externalizing) their costs. In other words making profits on a business while distributing the social costs into local watersheds, airsheds and habitat destruction is just dandy for them. Hence it has always been and hence it will remain but for the likes of Ecojustice and other concerned groups and citizens.