The Winnipeg Free Press reports, “Environmental groups are calling on Ontario and Manitoba to split the cost of funding to keep the Experimental Lakes Area open. …The Boreal Forest Network and the Council of Canadians is calling upon the Ontario and Manitoba governments to fund the lakes in an open letter Thursday. …Each province is being asked to pitch in $1 million a year for the next three years. Ottawa announced last winter it’s cutting funding this April.”
The article adds, “The lakes are located in Ontario and the Freshwater Institute is located in Manitoba. …For decades the ELA has been one of the world’s biggest natural laboratories and the source of pioneering work on pollution, like identifying phosphorus as a pollutant, leading to its removal from laundry detergent plus dozens of other practical measures to protect the environment.” The Harper government intends to either close the doors of the ELA by April 2013 or find a private organization to run it.
Our media release can be read at http://canadians.org/media/water/2012/20-Dec-12.html. The open letter to Ontario and Manitoba can be found at http://canadians.org/water/documents/ELA-Letter_Dec-2012.pdf.
Council of Canadians blogs related to the Experimental Lakes Area can be read at http://canadians.org/blog/?s=%22experimental+lakes+area%22. Notably in mid-October we highlighted in a campaign blog a CBC article that reported, “Three-quarters of Canadians, including 60 per cent of those who voted Conservative in the last election, oppose the cuts to the Experimental Lakes Area in northern Ontario, according to an Environics poll. ‘[Prime Minister Stephen] Harper is missing the mark, even with his own supporters,’ said Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians, the group that commissioned the poll.”
Today’s Winnipeg Free Press article is at http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Provinces-being-asked-to-fund-Experimental-Lakes-Area-184299451.html.
