[All] Letter to Prime Minister: re job cuts

[Louisette Lanteigne]

--- On Thu, 8/4/11, Louisette Lanteigne <butterflybluelu at rogers.com> wrote:


From: Louisette Lanteigne <butterflybluelu at rogers.com>
Subject: 
To: stephen.harper at parl.gc.ca, Nycole.Turmel at parl.gc.ca, bob.rae at parl.gc.ca, peter.kent at parl.gc.ca, jim.flaherty at parl.gc.ca
Cc: stephane.dion at parl.gc.ca, francis.scarpaleggia at parl.gc.ca
Date: Thursday, August 4, 2011, 10:09 AM






















Dear Hon. Prime Minister and Ministers.
 
By way of a press release, I  just found out that the Fed. Government is cutting hundreds of people from Envionment Canada including 200 professional scientists, engineers, meteorologists etc. To view this information please visit here:
 
http://greenparty.ca/media-release/2011-08-03/deep-cuts-environment-canada
 
Considering the natural disasters our nation has been experiencing, this is nothing short of shocking. How on earth can our nation reasonably prepair for climate change impacts if we don't have these people on federal staff? Canada is already experiencing forest fires in Ontario, floods in Manitoba, invasive species by way of zebra mussels, bore hole beetles and massive glaciers that put oil rigs at risk off the Atlantic Coast. We need all the staff we can get to reasonably mitigate risks in order to adapt and reasonably respond to these types of risk. As a tax payer I would gladly pay higher taxes to keep the staff hired to help mitigate risks for Canadians. 
 
I understand the Government has budget issues and is facing pressures from multinationals but the fact is, ,the path of lease resistance is wishful thinking that industry can be responsible for it's own data. Over the years the government has shifted the cost of data collection onto the private sector but once he private sector has the data it doesn't want to open itself to the risk of making it pubic or entering public processes. We are now witnessing the underpricing of risk and the socialization of losses with costs being transferred to taxpayers while at the same time, enforcement is being reduced. 
 
The Alberta Tar Sands health risks are identified at $820 million for health care but this woefully underestimated. Not all the risks are ending up on the balance sheet. There is no strong monitoring of the tar sands being done by federal and provincial agencies and there is a a lack of transparancy with the data. We don't even have a reasonable benchmark on issues as basic as water quality to work with. Environment Canada used to handle that benchmark data but now it's all locked in the labs of private industries. 
 
Transparency from industry is needed to disclose data so we can plan appropriately and provide our citizens and communities with access to data to reasonably particpate in the associated public processes.  The fact is currently industry is not bound to release the data and they are profitting from it. They can craft destruction for profit scenerios and exploit the weaknesses of the system for private gain. It happens all the time. 
 
The U.S. government’s estimate of the social cost of carbon is flawed. Gov't gives $21 per ton estimate currently which conflicts strongly with a new report that shows the "true" carbon costs are as high as $893 per ton in 2010 and $1,550 in 2050. To view the peer reviewed report as produced by  Economics for Equity and Environment titled Climate Risks and Carbon Prices: Revising the Social Cost of Carbon visit here: 
 
http://www.e3network.org/social_cost_carbon.html
 
Transparency can be supported by the following concept: If we can agree that water and air are common resources, the information on it should be too. Also remember, we monitor for proof, not to catch the "villian" but to achieve goals responsibly.
 
Thank you kindly for your time.
 
Louisette Lanteigne
700 Star Flower Ave.
Waterloo Ontario
N2V 2L2
 
 
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