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Waterfowl Deaths in Oil Sands Tailings Pond

Ms Blakeman: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. In July last year Syncrude officials reported to Sustainable Resource Development the final count of the ducks drowned in the tailings ponds. These officials were then instructed to withhold releasing the numbers to the public. Eight months later the Minister of Environment didn’t know the final count. My first question is to the Minister of Sustainable Resource Development. Was it department staff or the minister who ordered that the information be kept from the public and from his colleague?

Dr. Morton: Mr. Speaker, it’s a good thing for the member opposite that she’s not in a court of law. That would be called a leading question. There were no orders given to anybody. We got the same numbers that she got, that everybody got last fall. Over the course of the fall and winter I heard that the numbers were higher, but this was in the course of an investigation. I didn’t hear any specific numbers till they were made public last week.

Ms Blakeman: Well, the Syncrude officials were very clear on who they reported to, and it was your department.

An additional question to the same minister: is it policy for departmental staff to decide that a member of cabinet would not receive vital information?

Dr. Morton: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member across the way has her facts wrong. Syncrude worked with government staff in dealing with the ducks. If she has read the report, as I’m sure she has, subsequent to the initial count ducks were floating to the surface. This took time. As I said, there was no attempt made to suppress any information. It was confined in the context of the potential litigation.

The Speaker: The hon. member.

Ms Blakeman: Thank you. This question is to the Minister of Environment. While the final number of dead ducks may not matter for the purposes of a judicial investigation and the laying of charges, does the minister not require final numbers for the purposes of assigning monitoring staff and other department-related actions?

Mr. Renner: Well, Mr. Speaker, I guess herein lies the difference between being the opposition critic and being the government minister. The minister is responsible for getting the job done. The critic is responsible for a degree of political grandstanding, and I think that’s what we have on our hands here. The actual number of ducks is part of the investigation that led to charges being laid. I think it’s appropriate that we let the courts deal with that number in an appropriate manner. As for her question as to whether the number of duck mortality should affect the degree to which we have compliance with our legislation, of course not, Mr. Speaker. We enforce our legislation rigidly every day.