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Notes for remarks

by

The Honourable Laurel Broten
Minister of the Environment

Ministry of the Environment Leadership Forum (Toronto)
“Meeting Challenges Together”

Novotel Hotel
Toronto, ON
Thursday, December 1, 2005

(Check against delivery)

Good morning and thank you. It’s a great pleasure to be here today and to meet so much of the team in one place.

I want to pass a special welcome on to our new Deputy Minister, Paavo Kivisto. From our recent discussions, I know that he is more than prepared for the challenges ahead.

Last week we all said goodbye to Virginia West, who had been Deputy for almost three years. Paavo, if you are welcomed as warmly to the ministry by your team as I was by Virginia, you’re off to a great start.

I have been Minister for about five months now, and needless to say they have been eventful. So first, to everyone, I want to thank you for your hard work.

From the moment I arrived at the ministry, Virginia and the whole team have proven to be determined, hard-working and passionate about the environment. It is obvious that there is both a great pride in the abilities of the civil service and a tremendous personal connection to the work you do.

I would like to touch on three things today. I would like to give you an update on our mandate and our progress. I’d also like to speak about the key topic for today – risk communications. And finally, I will outline where we are moving next as a ministry and how we will get there.

I have been given a mandate by Premier McGuinty to strengthen our province and improve the health of our people for a strong and prosperous future.

The actions we take to protect the environment are actions to ensure the health, safety and sustainability of our communities…today and for future generations.

In just the past few months, we have made enormous progress.

We have set tough, new standards for 40 air pollutants, the single biggest move on this file in 25 years.

We have capped the largest industrial sources of smog-causing emissions.

We have improved the Drive Clean program to focus on vehicles that are most likely to pollute.

We are preparing to introduce legislation that will give Ontario some of the best protected water in North America by focusing on prevention.

And we have finalized rules for the pre-treatment of hazardous waste.

One of the biggest changes, though, has been the removal of barriers between our ministries. This change will strengthen our ability as a ministry to make Ontario a better place to live.

We are moving forward on ethanol in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. We are making it easier to remediate brownfields, which contributes to work by Municipal Affairs and Housing.

We are working with the Ministry of Energy on phasing out the coal plants and replacing them with energy conservation and cleaner, greener sources.

The Greenbelt and Places To Grow are examples of our government-wide efforts to deliver a strike against urban sprawl.

And by investing in public transit, we are giving people a real choice about transportation.

This is great news for our children, our seniors and others who are most vulnerable to the effects of pollution.

I don’t think it would have been possible to accomplish all of this if the various ministries had worked in silos. Cooperation on government-wide initiatives is the key our success and the model for the future.

I’m very glad to hear that you will spend today discussing risk communications. This is a topic of great interest to me. When you start thinking about how to communicate risk, you have to focus carefully on the objective.

A risk-based approach lets us do the most good for the greatest number of people. More importantly, it also minimizes the chances of an adverse situation.

In the past, there have been many examples of governments analyzing a crisis to try to determine what they could have done better to prevent it. Our mission is to do that thinking before the crisis is allowed to happen. I would rather ask “what if” now than “how” and “why” later.

I hope we all keep this way of thinking in mind as we take on fresh challenges.

In the next year, I anticipate more exciting opportunities for our ministry.

We will introduce legislation that will move us much closer to implementing all of the recommendations of the Walkerton Inquiry.

We will fulfill our promise to reform the environmental assessment process.

We will continue to work on regulations to implement environmental penalties for industrial polluters.

And we will welcome new members into our Environmental Leaders program, to encourage more businesses to move beyond simply meeting the minimum environmental standards.

These are just a few examples of actions we will take to help protect the environment and human health.

Everything we have accomplished so far has been thanks to your great effort and dedication. Thank you for always being ready to rise to the challenge.

I can assure you that there are more of these challenges ahead, but few ministries can enjoy the rewards of these efforts as much as we can.

I look forward to hearing the results of this forum and applying these lessons to the great work we do. Enjoy your day.

Thank you.

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