I didn’t, and I spend a couple of hours a day looking for news articles from in, or about, the Canadian Arctic…. and on the days I don’t do it I get the results of someone elses efforts in this area.
It comes from an exchange in the House between Dennis Bevington (Western Arctic, NDP) and Gordon O’Connor (Minister of National Defence, CPC), during question period on November 22nd[1].
Mr. Dennis Bevington (Western Arctic, NDP): Mr. Speaker, the NDP has learned through access to information that a major fuel spill at the Canadian Forces installation at Alert went unreported at the time. The significant incident report which we obtained states that on September 6 of this year a flex expansion joint failed and 21,000 litres of jet fuel were spilled at Alert.
Why did the government fail to inform northern Canadians? What actions has the minister taken to ensure this never happens again?
Hon. Gordon O’Connor (Minister of National Defence, CPC): Mr. Speaker, as soon as that incident occurred, the defence department moved quickly to clean it up. All the necessary actions have been taken.
Mr. Dennis Bevington (Western Arctic, NDP): Mr. Speaker, current and former northern military installations have wreaked havoc on the environment.
Why did it take the NDP to have this information see the light of day? The government promised to be open, transparent and accountable.
The minister should apologize. This incident should have been reported to the hard-working people of the north. We are not second class citizens.
Will he immediately announce that any incident like this will be promptly reported to the Canadian people?
Hon. Gordon O’Connor (Minister of National Defence, CPC): Mr. Speaker, all the necessary actions were taken to clean up the spill. I should inform the member that DND is spending about $60 million each year cleaning up residue that was left in the north for the last 30 to 40 years. We will continue to do that until all the areas are cleaned up.
Questions that arise:
Why was this not in the news? The obvious conclusion is that it was purposefully hidden; there’s no way that 21,000 litres of oil get dumped into a fragile arctic environment and it isn’t big news on the Canadian front, and bigger news on the northern front, unless it was.
The next question is why was it buried? Buried deep enough that it was via access to information requests that it finally saw the light of day?
Why was it the NDP Member from the Western Arctic discovering this and not the Lib. Member from the Eastern Arctic?
– and of equal (if not greater) importance, why did Minister O’Conner not answer the direct question posed to him by Mr. Bevington?
Will he immediately announce that any incident like this will be promptly reported to the Canadian people?
Wasn’t it only 2 days ago that Minister Jim Prentice said (regarding matters Aboriginal), that “Aboriginal Canadians now know they have a government that delivers. No more ducking, dodging, dithering or delaying.”
O’Conner is most certainly ducking and dodging.
I suppose we should be happy that they didn’t try and blame the former government for this one, but the openness, transparency, accountability, and honesty, much touted by the CPoC during the election campaign as part of the new Canadian order seems to be in very short supply.
…. as is any evidence of real answers to clear and direct questions asked in the House.
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[1] There is no link to this exchange as any link provided would cease to function accurately as soon as the online Hansard was updated, if someone has a link to the online archives I’ll start using those links.
“All the necessary actions have been taken.”
Seems to me that one of the necessary actions would be to notify the public…. So I guess the Minister lied because not all the necesssary actions were taken. But hay, this is only the environament after all, and we all know how important the environment is to the CPC
~WOW, bit my tongue~