For Immediate Release:
June 3, 2011
Simcoe – Two days before the government prorogued the Ontario Legislature early, Haldimand-Norfolk MPP Toby Barrett was able to update the Ontario Legislature about concerns at Edwards Landfill in Cayuga.
With the Minister of the Environment unable or unwilling to answer Barrett’s follow up on, “provincial orders requiring 37 items to be complied with by May 20,” it was up to the Opposition Environment Critic to reveal the latest twist at the controversial Edwards site.
“Local residents were already skeptical, given your history of reckless ineptitude on waste diversion and waste management – now we hear that Terrasan has filed for bankruptcy, ending speculation that they would purchase Edwards out of receivership,” Barrett informed the Minister. “People are asking me now where the money will come from to ensure the upgrades are completed?
”Minister, what assurances can you provide the people in Haldimand county that Edwards won’t revert back to the pre-February 10, 2011, status before your environmental orders were issued?”
The Minister’s response failed to even mention the Edwards situation.
Barrett’s questions followed similar inquiries, also during Question Period, over a month ago regarding the provincial orders at the site.
“Minister, last month I asked you about the Edwards landfill in Cayuga regarding a series of provincial orders requiring 37 items to be complied with by May 20,” Barrett reminded the Minister. “Haldimand Against Landfill Transfers, HALT, has worked to protect the landfill’s surrounding area for close to a decade. They wrote you requesting that the site be closed until the 37 items are complied with. You didn’t close the site. The May 20 deadline has now passed. Can you tell the House and can you confirm that all 37 items have now been complied with?”
With no answers forthcoming Barrett has informed the Minister he will be following up with a letter requesting the information he was unable to provide in the Legislature.
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For more information, please contact MPP Toby Barrett at: (416) 325-8404,
(519) 428-0446 or 1-800-903-8629
Mr. Toby Barrett: To the Minister of the Environment: Minister, last month I asked you about the Edwards landfill in Cayuga regarding a series of provincial orders requiring 37 items to be complied with by May 20. These orders follow years of questions and petitions and process due to concerns about the ongoing operation of the landfill and its impact on the local environment.
Haldimand Against Landfill Transfers, HALT, has worked to protect the landfill’s surrounding area for close to a decade. They wrote you requesting that the site be closed until the 37 items are complied with. You didn’t close the site. The May 20 deadline has now passed. Can you tell the House and can you confirm that all 37 items have now been complied with?
Hon. John Wilkinson: I’m so happy that my critic for the environment has asked me a question today after the release of strange book on the weekend. They have a plan over there that says, “You know what we need to do with landfills? Take all that stuff that we’ve been safely diverting away from landfills and dump it into landfills.” Now he comes into the House today and says, “Well, our party is for getting paint and tires and waste electronics and what we should do is put them in the landfills.”
On this side of the House, we believe that people want to do the right thing. They want to divert. We want to take those dangerous items that can endanger our children and our ground water and get them out of landfills so we don’t have the type of compliance issues that we have in Cayuga.
I say to the member that our ministry is here to protect the people in his community, that we will do whatever we need to do to ensure that the laws of the province of Ontario are respected. But we are absolutely adamant that we are keeping harmful—
The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?
Mr. Toby Barrett: Back to Edwards: These are significant issues with asbestos and leachate spill contingencies. Local residents were already skeptical, given your history of reckless ineptitude on waste diversion and waste management. Now we hear that Terrasan has filed for bankruptcy, ending speculation that they would purchase Edwards out of receivership. People are asking me now where the money will come from to ensure the upgrades are completed.
Minister, what assurances can you provide the people in Haldimand county that Edwards won’t revert back to the pre-February 10, 2011, status before your environmental orders were issued?
Hon. John Wilkinson: Ever since the weekend, everybody has been asking me, “Why do they have a plan over there to take hazardous, dangerous material and dump it back in the landfills?” That’s why we have the problem in the first place. On this side of the House, we are committed to protecting the environment. People want to do the right thing, and that is exactly why we have worked to upload that responsibility from our municipalities. What did we get on the weekend? That they want to download waste back to the municipalities. When was the last time we had a government downloading to municipalities? It was that government over there.
We have been working in partnership with our communities like Cayuga to make sure that people are protected. They don’t want to see this leachate. They don’t want to see tires in the back forty and in the ditches. All of those materials today—we have the hope of having them transformed into new resources and into new jobs. All of those green jobs in recycling are going to be—
The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. New question.