Right in the centre - Time for a pushback

Details

Published on Thursday, May 22, 2025

Ken Waddell

Neepawa Banner & Press

It didn't take too long, in fact only a day, for the newly elected federal Liberal government to fall back into the miry clay of days gone bye. In spite of shiny new promises from Prime Minister Mark Carney, several of his cabinet minsters blew off steam on day one with some egregious comments.

They basically dismissed changes that were promised during the campaign. One especially notable promise was to build more pipelines but Minister Stephen Guilbeault squashed that idea very quickly, spouting again about how we need less oil, more EVs and how the world would be oil-free within a few years. A National Post report said, “Tuesday’s cabinet shuffle retained Guilbeault in his pre-election post as minister of Canadian Identity and Culture.

The position gives him oversight over the CBC, Parks Canada, the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, among others.” Well, I guess the good news is that Guilbeault is not in charge of Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) but if his first news interview is any indication, he likely won’t stop speaking as if he is and by being in charge of all the abovementioned departments, he will be able to control the messaging coming out of CBC and CRTC (TV,

Radio and Internet). I am not sure that many people realize that the reason that newspapers (this one included), TV and radio stations aren’t on Facebook is that the federal government dictated that FB had to pay news media outlets for content but rather than obeying the edict, FB just cancelled access to media FB sites across Canada. Sad, but true.

But Guilbeault will have impact closer to home. You may recall that Parks Canada banned boats on Clear Lake, including the cruise ship Martese, in an ill-fated attempt to control Zebra Mussels. The wind killed a plastic mussels barrier, surprise, surprise! The ban cost a lot of businesses. So, Parks Canada lifted the ban and people planned and invested accordingly. Late last week, the ban was put back in place.

People are not happy

Parks Canada’s ill-fated mussel solution is stupid. Zebra Mussels are in Clear Lake, end of story. If past experience indicates future patterns, there will be a lot more Zebra mussels in Clear Lake and other lakes too. The Martese never leaves Clear Lake but Parks Canada has basically crushed an important business and attraction at Clear Lake with a rule that won’t do a thing to reduce or eliminate Zebra Mussels. Parks Canada should be sued.

As other locations have shown, it’s nigh unto impossible to control these crunchy little critters. The Province of Manitoba says Zebra Mussels, “clog water intake systems increasing costs to communities and industries. This includes power generating stations, water supply facilities and drinking water infrastructure. Reduce water-front property values of homes and cottages, block watercraft engine cooling systems possibly causing engine damage.”

On the Great Lakes, “Zebra Mussels had a silver lining; they filtered out pollutants and cleaned sediment out of the water, and brought it all down to the bottom of the lake, helping to reduce the amount of pollution in the water and making it clearer.”

Government regulations rarely work and the Zebra Mussel efforts can be added to the trash heap of failed efforts. Maybe government policies should be filtered through Zebra Mussels so they could become clearer too.

In recent meetings across Southwestern Manitoba, the proposed Conservation Corridors proposed to be administered by Parks Canada have been met with suspicion. Considering how badly Parks Canada has handled controlled burns, the Agassiz Ski Hill fiasco and the Zebra Mussels issue, the suspicions are fully justified.

With Guilbeault in charge, western Manitobans are doomed to more ill-founded environmental nonsense. It is indeed time for pushback.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are the writer’s personal views andare not to be taken as being the view of the newspaper staff.