Dunlop’s Site 41 bill dies as Legislature prorogued

He will re-introduce killed bill
Midland Free Press
Simcoe North MPP Garfield Dunlop has lost his battle to have the landfill Site 41 certificate of approval revoked.
Dunlop’s private member’s bill to revoke the certificate died last Thursday on the Order Paper after Premier Dalton McGuinty prorogued the Legislature. Dunlop has pledged to re-introduce the bill in the coming weeks.
It was the second time in 20 years that a Liberal government has given tacit support to the landfill site. In 1990, the David Peterson government passed an Order-in-Council that overruled the decision of a joint board that had rejected the landfill application.
Yesterday’s decision to prorogue the Legislature not only killed Dunlop’s bill, but ignored hundreds of letters and emails from North Simcoe residents appealing to the government to let the bill stand.
“I don’t know why McGuinty would infuriate the public when he knows how serious an issue this is to people; not just people in North Simcoe, but people across this country and elsewhere.”
“They (the government) should know the people aren’t going to go away. The people won’t allow a landfill on that site and they want the approvals removed. And we will keep hammering away until we get what we want,” Dunlop asserted.
Although Simcoe County mothballed the landfill project after a lengthy blockade of the facility during the summer, the county still holds the certificate of approval. Site 41 opponents argue that as long as the certificate exists, the site could in the future be proposed again as a landfill, or sold to a private landfill company.
Dunlop described the government’s decision not to keep his and other private members’ bills alive as a “lack of respect for MPPs who had bills before the House, not just those in the opposition but their own (Liberal) members.
Dunlop’s Bill had unanimously passed second reading in the Legislature last November. Normally after second reading a bill is sent to committee for review, where it can be amended, before being brought back to the Legislature for third and final reading. However, the government had stalled sending Dunlop’s bill to committee.
“Dalton McGuinty’s tactics will not deter our efforts to remove the Certificate of Approval on Site 41,” added Dunlop.
During question period in the Legislature March 1, the NDP’s Peter Tabuns urged Environment Minister John Gerretsen to keep Dunlop’s bill alive, asking:
“Why won’t the minister act once and for all and protect the Georgian Bay watershed by revoking the outdated certificate of approval?”
Gerretsen replied by saying that if the county “were to ask us to basically revoke that certificate, we would do that.
“But they’ve applied for a certificate that we looked at the time and over the last 20 years, and we feel that site 41, from a scientific viewpoint, is an appropriate site…they’re the people who applied for the certificate and we approved the certificate using the best scientific information that’s available. If they now want us to revoke that certificate, all they have to do is write us a letter asking for the revocation of that certificate.”
The government’s refusal to keep Dunlop’s bill alive was sharply criticized by Maude Barlow, national chairperson for the Council of Canadians.
Commenting on Gerretsen’s reference to scientific data, Barlow said “the information Gerretsen is relying on to make his decision has never been peer reviewed and there is ample evidence that this critical information is wrong,” she says.
“To date, the MOE has never seen the MODFLOW. They reviewed the Jagger Hims report based on the modeling, but never looked at the underlying scientific measurements that support the conclusion that Site 41 is protective of the environment.”