Toxins control and beaurocratic nightmares

Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 16:36:39 +0000
From: Ross Mayhew <rmayhew@ns.sympatico.ca>
To: "Brian C. Bradley" <ax876@chebucto.ns.ca>
CC: kim.kennedy@ec.gc.ca, Sharon Labchuk <slabchuk@isn.net>, "'Sustainable-Maritimes'" <sust-mar@chebucto.ns.ca>
References: <Pine.GSO.3.95.iB1.0.1020916133327.10327A-100000@halifax.chebucto.ns.ca>
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Return-Path: <sust-mar-mml-owner@chebucto.ns.ca>

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	Mr. Bradley  seems to have put his experienced finger on a large
portion of the problem - governmental communications problems of the
highest and most dangerous order!!   Interdepartmental cooperation and
information sharing in general are a huge problem in our governments'
internal workings,  especially given the growing number of jurisdiction
overlaps in such vital fields as environmental issues, various of which
are federal, provincial and/or municipal.   That said,  protecting the
country's citizens from toxins of all sorts should be a priority for any
government.   There is obviously no easy answer to this quandary - a
national advisory board on the subject, which all applicable federal
departments would be instructed to pay careful and diligent attention to
(one can dream......), might be a good approach?   The thorny issue of
agricultural chemical use is a particularly important one because we
can't all afford organic produce, and the effects of most commonly used
(or considered) chemicals on children in particular, are extremely
poorly known.   That said, when governments all over the civilized world
are making faster progress in protecting their citizens from such
chemicals as chlorpyrifos and there various formulations (e.g.:
Dursban),  something is clearly wrong with the way our governmental
system in general is safeguarding or ignoring our health and the health
of the portion of the biosphere that our country has jurisdiction over. 
 I get a headache just thinking about the sea-change that will be
necessary to bring about significant improvement in this situation,
given the dismally low priority environmental matters have in our
current governmental milieu - a LOT of of hard work will be necessary. 
In the meantime,  fighting threats to our collective health one at a
time i believe is still a valid option, but we must constantly bear in
mind (and be encouraging the improvement of!!) the larger picture and
not get bogged down in the minutiae of the various issues to be tackled.

-Ross Mayhew.

"Brian C. Bradley" wrote:

> Government departments continue to 'evolve' to the point where they not only 'pull it alone', but, in so doing, pull apart from other departments'  activities/goals. This pulling apart leads to unnecessary burdens to the  other departments as well as to the taxpayers.  It will only be with an  integrated approach, to the current and future issues, that all Canadian  Government departments will provide effective leadership and guidance for  the Canadian citizens.
> I alluded to this necessity during our discussions when highlighting  information provided by one department and virtually ignored by the others with the budget for correcting these ignorances currently running into the  billions of dollars.  Ñ



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