Toxic releases

The CP reports on the backlash against the Ontario Libs' selective application of responsible environmental practices:

Residents and businesses in northern Ontario will be exempted from the province's proposed plan to restrict the burning of used motor oil -- a move that local environmentalists say is unsatisfactory at best.

The Ontario government is mulling a regulation that would forbid burning used motor oil in space heaters, an effort to cut down on unnecessary emissions in the most crowded parts of the province.

The ban would not apply in the areas north and west of the Mattawa River, Lake Nipissing and the French River, or in and around Manitoulin -- mainly because there's no other alternative for disposing of used oil...

The government says some 700 businesses, most of them in southern Ontario, are responsible for the release of metals, halogens and sulphur into the environment by burning the oil.

"We know that these toxins impact the nervous system and the immune system... especially in the local level," said Lindsay Mack, spokeswoman for the Ministry of the Environment.

Research has concluded that the practice is most harmful to those nearest the source, Mack added. The exemption is necessary simply because there's little else to do with the oil in northern Ontario, she said.

"By no means does it mean that we are not concerned about local air quality, but it comes down to the fact that we had limited disposal options."

What's left completely unanswered is the question of whether other disposal options could have been created - whether directly, or as a response to the regulation. And given that the rest of Ontario must have sufficient disposal mechanisms available to avoid burning used oil under the regulation, there's no reason to assume that some smaller-scale operation couldn't be put in place for northern Ontario as well.

Instead, the McGuinty government seems entirely happy to let northern Ontario deal with health risks which have been (justifiably) deemed unacceptable for the province's more heavily populated areas. And while the regulation itself will at least have some positive effect compared to the status quo, the exemption only signals the Ontario Libs' continued tendency toward half-measures rather than a true commitment to a clean environment.