Cleaning up

Stephane Dion's announcement probably isn't the biggest story of the day, or the one most affecting Canada's power structure, or the one with the most potential for hilariously snide commentary. But it could be the most important:

Federal Environment Minister Stephane Dion has announced more than $150 million in funding to clean up toxic sites across Canada.

Most of the money is headed to the Arctic to deal with a poisonous legacy that includes abandoned mines and old military sites...

Projects include the ongoing cleanup at the Giant Mine outside Yellowknife, where poisons left by the now-bankrupt Royal Oak mines include 237,000 tonnes of arsenic stored underground in huge drift piles.

Another cleanup site is Port Radium where a Cold-War-era radium and uranium mine poses environmental and health concerns for the people of nearby Deline, N.W.T.

Another mine at Colomac, 210 kilometres north of Yellowknife, has left two tailings ponds heavily contaminated by cyanide, a highly toxic chemical used in gold refining.

Dion said many of the problems in the North are a result of old mining regulations. The federal government was often left assuming the environmental liabilities of bankrupt mining companies.

Today, we saw part of the bill for our failure to monitor development carefully enough in the past - and we shouldn't forget to add in how many people have already been hurt by these sites.

We can now be somewhat reassured that current companies aren't allowed to walk away from their obligations in the same way. But it'll take a lot of effort to make sure that future governments keep this lesson in mind.