Shawnigan residents fought hard to stop a plan to dump Victoria鈥檚 contaminated soil near their drinking water, but the Environment Ministry has ruled against them. Ministry staff approved a permit for the project, and the minister has insisted such decisions have to be made by experts, not politicians.
That reasoning sounds good because we all complain about decisions made by politics rather than on evidence, but when hundreds of local residents rally to oppose a decision, you鈥檝e got politics. Like it or not.
The ministry鈥檚 experts put their stamp on the proposal from South Island Aggregates to create a soil-remediation facility at its site in the Shawnigan watershed. A committee will monitor regular tests of the water.
The cynical view is that politicians come up with rules such as the ones that govern this process so they don鈥檛 end up wearing decisions that make voters angry. They can just blame it all on the technical experts.
More charitably, some calls do have to be made on the evidence, and enshrining that in regulation helps to restrain politicians who might want to insert themselves into areas where they will mess things up.
However, this case illustrates the dangers of such a policy. Residents who fear for their drinking water come up against politicians who shrug and say: 鈥淭here鈥檚 nothing I can do about it.鈥�
Taxpayers, who are frustrated, powerless and angry, don鈥檛 buy it. And that should make politicians nervous.
