Hon. James McCrae (Minister of Environment): Madam Speaker, I have a statement to make to the House today.
I rise today to make a statement on this the 28th anniversary of the first Earth Day. This day to celebrate the environment was first organized in 1970 to meet the growing concerns of water and air pollution at a time when there were virtually no laws specifically designed to protect the environment. Much has changed since that first Earth Day. The concept of sustainable development has matured, and we now recognize that environment is intimately linked with our social and economic well-being, and that none of these three can be pursued in isolation from the other two.
We have the laws and institutions, the capacity which was not there in 1970, to set the targets that define the high quality of environment we want in Manitoba. We have a whole array of tools that were not even contemplated back then: pollution prevention, product stewardship, emissions trading, environmental management systems like ISO 14000 and new concepts of environmental liability, to name just a few.
We are also faced with a new array of challenges. Depletion of the earth's ozone layer was not on the minds of the participants on Earth Day No. 1, nor was climate change. There is a host of other new concerns which have only emerged in the past couple of decades, such as the preservation of biodiversity and the health effects of small particulates and trace amounts of toxins in air. There has been much to celebrate on recent Earth Days. The emphasis has been on how individuals can be environmentally friendly in their day-to-day lives, the tone positive. But that does not mean we are growing complacent, and there certainly is no reason that we should. One local environmental group has coined the motto, Make Every Day Earth Day, and I agree with that.
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Governments are reaching the limits of what can be achieved through command and control legislation. It is only going to be through fundamental changes on a very personal level, at the grassroots, which will meet the challenges ahead, and that is what Earth Day is all about.
My congratulations to all Manitobans who are celebrating, either in some formal or organized fashion or simply by a private unrecognized thought or action on their own, Earth Day 1998.
Mr. Gregory Dewar (Selkirk): I want to thank the minister for his statement today recognizing the 28th anniversary of Earth Day. Yesterday in the House during private members' hour we had an opportunity to do something really tangible to improve the environment in this province where we had a resolution calling upon the government to work with the City of Winnipeg to expand recycling opportunities to individuals who live in apartments, to individuals who live in northern communities, and the government, they played politics with that issue. They would not take it to a vote, denying these individuals the opportunity, who all of us who contribute to that fund--there is probably between $7 million, $8 million currently in that fund obtained by that 2-cent levy. There was an opportunity for the government to do something tangible, to do something meaningful about the environment but unfortunately they played politics; they dropped the ball on that issue. Thank you.