Minister's Speech

Speaking points prepared for:

The Honourable John Gerretsen
Minister of the Environment

Event to Launch Brownfields Book

Kingston, Royal George Condominium Site
Thursday, September 24th, 2009

(Check against delivery)

Thank you for that kind introduction.

I’m glad to be here today.
 
Just looking around at everything that’s happening here at this site — it’s hard to believe it was once abandoned land.

This site is part of the exciting revitalization taking place here in downtown Kingston.

Cleaning and restoring brownfields is good news for our community, for people’s health and for our environment.

We’re building more sustainable communities by redeveloping these areas — reducing sprawl, removing toxic materials from the soil, and preventing contamination from going into our water.

There’s a lot of work to be done, with as many as 30,000 brownfields sites in Canada.

These include old and abandoned refineries, former railway yards, old waterfronts and crumbling warehouses as well as commercial properties where toxic substances may have been used or stored.

Left in an abandoned and idle state, brownfields pose risks to human health and the environment because of the toxic materials left behind.

Many of these areas — like this one — are on old industrial, port and railway lands situated in prime downtown locations.

In remediating these sites we help build stronger, cleaner, more vital communities.

This is a great example of how well remediating brownfields can work to increase density in the downtown core so people can work and live within this historic community, within walking distance to so many attractions; the ferry, the market, Queen’s University, shops and restaurants.

Places like this — close to the beautiful Kingston waterfront — can be turned into attractive places to live and work and become top-end real estate.

I want to especially recognize the important role of the City of Kingston — leaders in brownfields redevelopment.

They have had the foresight to seize this opportunity to offer special incentives to businesses through:

• REAP program
• Economic Development agency

For an example of what’s being done you just have to look at the great new sports complex here in Kingston.

Kingston’s civic leaders are making it more viable and attractive to developers to remediate these brownfield sites – and recoup their investments through tax incentives.

Our government recognizes the importance of brownfield reforms.

We have addressed barriers to brownfield redevelopment, while at the same time ensuring rigorous protection for our environment.

We need redevelopment to work and to work well for everyone — for the municipalities, for the developers of the sites and for the people in the community.
 
This is all about building productive partnerships with developers, municipalities, and province.

Brownfields redevelopment has so many benefits.

It creates good jobs for people in Kingston and spin-off economic benefits in engineering and environmental firms, in construction, innovative research into new technologies for cleaning up contaminated sites as well as boosting local businesses who benefit from redevelopment.

The more we learn, as science evolves, the better we are able to clean up these sites, protect our water and our land.

I was happy to contribute the forward for this book, which provides an excellent overview of brownfields rules in Ontario, the new amendments that have been made to encourage remediation and rehabilitation of these sites, along with a case study of how all this works here in Kingston.
 
Congratulations to everyone involved.

Let’s keep working at building a stronger, cleaner, more prosperous and successful community.

Thank you.

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