Non à Belledune; sauver la Baie des Chaleurs!

 

Cette lettre a été envoyée au ministre de l'environnement du Canada par Bilbo Cyr, un membre de la Table Ronde Jeunesse Environnement du gouvernement du Canada à propos d'un thermo-oxydateur « anti-démocratique » en construction par la compagnie Bennett Environmental à Bellebune, au Nouveau-Brunswick. Elle est parvenue à la rédaction du cyberjournal CommerceMonde via l’organisme Action Pou belledune : « Solidarité régionale et internationale pour Non sauver la Baie des Chaleurs! »
 

 

June 22, 2004

Monsieur David Anderson
Ministre de l'Environnement
Les Terrasses de la Chaudière
10, rue Wellington, 28 ième étage
Hull (Québec)
K1A 0H3
Fax: 819-953-3457
david.anderson@ec.gc.ca

Honorable Minister Anderson,

My name is Bilbo Cyr. I am a member of the Youth Round Table on the Environment (YRTE), a national youth advisory body for you, David Anderson, the environment Minister of Canada. I am writing today to share the overwhelming frustration that has been growing in me since I started working on the issue of a toxic waste incinerator being set up in Belledune, New-Brunswick, a dozen kilometres away from my home, Gaspesie, Qc.

The YRTE met in october 2003 and agreed to oppose any project of thermal treatment of waste. Shortly after, the YRTE met with you, minister Anderson, to express our concerns. You then mandated the Environmental Evaluation Agency to search for potential transboundary effects, which if present, would be a trigger for our Environment minister to do what he is paid for : protect the environment! They finally came back with an answer 6 months later: No significant impacts.

Of course, significant impact in this case is clearly a point of view. I see the chimney from my house in Quebec, I see the smoke. When I hear that there is no transboundary impact, I can't help thinking the study was bought by someone. How could anyone with a bit of information possibly come to the conclusion that it is totally safe to burn toxic waste by the Bay. How is it possible that the conclusion of 150 pages of uncertainties and missing data is : No significant impact.

I think about Swanhill, in Alberta, where an explosion in an incinerator resulted in dioxin contamination over more than 30 kilometers radius. Why was that not taken into consideration? If the same would happen here, the Baie-des-Chaleurs, among the nicest bays of the world (According to UNESCO) would be contaminated irreversibly.

Then, if there would be a potential transboundary effect, it would mean that all the others industries in northern New-Brunswick would have one too, like the orimulsion power plant, which smog of purple haze can be seen from our side, stretching across the sky. Same for the mine, the smelter, the fertilizer plant, the batteries recycling center or all the pulp mills along the shore line. It is a lot less trouble to just use the agency as a scapegoat who serves plain lies, covered by the minister.

Lies, like when Anderson proudly signed the Stockholm's Convention. Will it be ratified and honored, or dismissed and ignored. The 50 countries necessary to its application have signed, and the first name on the list is CANADA. Yet we are just about to allow the incineration of chlorine contaminated soil, known to be a main source of dioxin. It is said in the convention that dioxin travel over great distances, over the boundaries.

More than 50 000 people signed a petition to oppose the project and it looks like they will be ignored. We do not care that the Agency says there is no impact: we all agree that we do not want Bennett in our Bay. Our development must not be achieved through everyone else's wastes. None of our elected officials so far have taken a stand to represent their population. Democracy?

What will it take to be heard and considered? Woundeds? Deads? How many cancer before we suddenly realize that it is too late (is it already too late?), that the region is being turned into a sacrifice zone, contaminated for decades, even centuries, with the most toxic chemicals known to man. Belledune, with close to two thousand souls, is the seventh most polluted city in Canada. Why should we accept that a heavier burden be put there.

What would you say if instead of poor job-starved Gaspesie and northern New-Brunswick, it would be Victoria or Ottawa that was at risk?

We, people from the Baie-Des-Chaleurs will fight with every means that we have. We will not stop the fight if there is no moratorium, which you have a discretionnary power to ask for. If you don't do it, it is because you choose not to.

I got involved in politics, through the YRTE, because I thought it could make a difference. So far I have been treated like a clown, being sent from one player to an other until I fell in a jurisdiction gap. I feel that the YRTE is there to allow the minister to say and look like he cares about the youth, more than really take into consideration the opinion of the generation that will be left with the mess.

I feel that Environment Canada is there to protect the minister and his friends interest more than the environment. Here I speak about Paul Martin and CSL (guess whose boats will end their existance on the toxic trail). I speak about Irving and I speak about Monsanto, Bennett Environmental, Unisphere and all the future tenants of Renviro Environmental park.

The fact that the incomplete study of the Environmental Evaluation Agency was released just before the elections is quite convenient for the liberals. The Commission, mandated by David Anderson, will come back with the missing answers, eventually, after the elections! Is there going to be a moratorium on the construction and operation of the incinerator while we are waiting? Will Bennett be allowed to test-burn during the study? During that time, will there be a real public consultation on the development of the Baie-des-Chaleurs? Will there be a full independent study? If the conclusion that there is no transboundary effects is not good, could we conclude just the opposite: that there is one (potentially) and that for this reason we should apply the precaution principle. The Persistant Organic Pollutants (POP) are known to be : persistant and pollutants. Incinerators are known to be a main source of dioxin and there is no need to be an expert to say so. There is no safe level of exposure for dioxin. Why is the accepted level for dioxin 0.08 part per million in the US and 10 parts per million in Canada?

David Anderson alone, by the delays deliberately added, by pretending he is not sure about the danger of the incinerator, is among the worst Canadian environmental problem I have had to deal with in my short enviro-activist career. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Keep gaining time for Bennett and play the austrich, and your name will remain in history, between pollution and corruption. Apply the Stockholm protocol before you leave your seat, and protect all Canadians from further exposure to POP, and your name will be cleared for real and for good. If you really want the youth`s opinion, here is mine. If you do not care about it, maybe other people will.

Please be assured that I hope I am proved to be wrong, and that you, minister David Anderson, turn out to be as responsible as you should be.

Bilbo Cyr,
Member of the National Youth Round Table on the environment.

C.C. to the YRTE, International medias, environmental organizations and everyone I know.