Ms Blakeman: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. This government does not protect the people of Alberta from chemical emissions. 

Instead, they rely on self-regulation by industry and on companies to tell them what it means for Albertans when incidents occur. The government has no idea what and how much toxic and carcinogenic chemicals were released into the air. Government officials are reduced to begging the responsible company for information. To the Minister of Environment. It has been a month. Can the minister tell us the amount of chemicals released into the air that Albertans breathe from the Suncor incident on March 15?

Mr. Renner: Mr. Speaker, I don’t have that information at hand, but I’m sure that given an appropriate amount of time I could have that information brought forward from my department, and I’ll be happy to provide it to the hon. member.

Ms Blakeman: To the same minister: what is the reason that we lack the expertise in the Department of Environment to be able to tell Albertans the potential effects of a thousand kilograms of a catalyst that was released? We had to go and ask Suncor what it was.

Mr. Renner: Well, Mr. Speaker, that’s ludicrous. We have all kinds of technical expertise within our department. What we don’t have – and it would be ridiculous for us to have – is our top technical people at every licensed facility in the province 24 hours a day, 365 days a year just in case there is an incident that needs to be recorded. The member is absolutely right: we depend upon industry to advise us of these incidents. At the same time, we don’t only depend on it; we require it, and we will hold them accountable if they do not.

Ms Blakeman: You don’t know what happened there. Back to the same minister: why does the government choose to rely on a weak self-reporting policy rather than monitoring and expertise done by ministry staff? Is it money? Is it lack of political will? Why? This jeopardizes the health of Albertans.

Mr. Renner: Well, Mr. Speaker, I answered the third question in the second question. It’s the same reason that we don’t have auditors that are employed by the government of Alberta ensuring that at the end of the day people record the numbers correctly in their books so that we can ensure the taxes they pay at the end of the year. We have audits. We have a process where we do unannounced audits, and we have a process where we do regular audits. That’s how we hold them accountable.

Alberta Hansard, April 14, 2010

[direct link to this article]