Yes, You Can : Yes, You Must

It's got to be awfully difficult to be the head of a government, knowing the full weight of governance responsibility falls upon your shoulders and those too of the people whose judgement you trust and with whom you surround yourself. Governments inherit the successes and the failures of those who have come before them. They gratefully accept the successfully administered areas of governance and groan over the previous governments' failures.

Then use those failures as reasons to excuse themselves from responsibility. When, in reality, they are fully responsible, for the simple fact is that they are the government and must absorb unto themselves the determination to correct under performance wherever it occurs. It little matters who was responsible in the past since that is now past. So it doesn't come off very well when Canada's environment minister moans about the previous government's neglectful performance.

After all, when campaigning for ascendancy during the last federal election, it was the Conservative Party under Stephen Harper that promised, as all political aspirants do, to govern responsively and responsibly. One of the many areas of responsibility is the country's environment. It's clear that this current government is committed to doing a credible job in a great many areas, including some facets of environmental custodianship. But it lags lamentably in others.

It received a commendation for its initiative in launching an assessment of toxic chemicals and contamination management at federal sites. But has come up short with respect to needed progress in resolving the issues of water pollution in the Great Lakes, in endangered species protections; federal environment operations, and Canada's international commitments.

These are not new, but rather outstanding issues of long duration, identified but not remedied. One of which is a joint water quality agreement with the United States whereby Canada is responsible to do its part in cleaning up the Great Lakes and maintaining ongoing reportage on progress. The government itself had decades earlier identified 17 severely degraded areas of concern surrounding the Great Lakes.

That a succession of governments failed to undertake action to remediate the problems of contamination leading to deformed fish, beach closures, contaminated drinking water - to clean up a situation long overdue - is hardly a reason for the current government to hang back from its responsibilities. And while Prime Minister Stephen Harper has identified Great Lakes water quality as a priority, nothing much has yet been done.

Not a word in the latest budget, no monies allocated. Environment Canada released its estimate of a cost of $2.4-billion to be invested in municipal waste water infrastructure, and another $250-million to clean up toxic sedimentary deposits. These are critical issues, directly relevant to the quality of life for Canadians. The cost is not too onerous for a wealthy country like Canada. The option to do nothing is not an answer to such direct needs.

Past time they be addressed.