Cape Breton's Magazine

At right, Elizabeth at the centre of friends on a visit to South Moresby, celebrating its designation as a na? tional preserve. The man in the hat is the Hon. John Fraser, Speaker of the House of Commons & former Minister of the Environment. Standing, David Suzuiti. Below, left to right: Gregg Sheehy, Elizabeth May, Colleen McCrory, Reg Wesley, Terry Husband, and Charlene Aleck. to be consulted. That was something that it was sort of an influence that I had. And I felt really good about the Ozone Protocol. I played a role in that--not huge. It was the first international treaty to protect the atmosphere. Well, it may have been the second because-- depending on how you look at it. The At? mospheric Nuclear Weapons Test Ban Treaty of the early '60s, I think, was actually a pollution treaty, even though it's treated as a disarmament treaty. Because what it really accomplished was not that people wouldn't test weapons, but that they'd stop testing them in the atmos? phere, so you wouldn't have all this fallout, which was a very serious form of pollution. Although those words weren't used at the time. And on the Great Lakes, and on Niagara, and on the St. Lawrence--a lot of things. And then there were a lot of little things where people would just be in trouble. I was almost acting like an environmental ombudsman. People would call me up and say. "I can't get any satisfaction from Environment Canada in my region," or "I've got this issue and I don't even know if it's federal or provincial, but what should I do?" And I just have a good net? work of friends and contacts. And I mean, some? times the advice wasn't government-type advice or even legal-type advice. It was just organiz? ing/advocacy-type advice. So all of that, I feel really good about. (And then you quit.) I didn't have any choice, really. If I was going to be able to live with myself, I didn't have any choice at all. What had happened was, I'd been there for a couple of years. And (the Minister) had more than lived up to his end of the agreement, that there would never be a decision made that affected the environment--as opposed to some political thing--that any issue that affected the environment, I would have an opportunity to influence it. Nothing would happen behind my back, in other words. And in early June of '88, I got a phone call quite out of the blue from someone in the De? puty Prime Minister's Office, who assumed that I knew everything that was going on, because I always did. "Well, where are your bureau? crats?" I said, "What bureaucrats?" She said, "Well, they're supposed to be in Saskatche? wan." This is the kind of conversation you get sometimes. And I said, "I don't know what you mean, exactly." She said, "Your bureaucrats WE BUY AND WE SELL AND WERE AS NEAR AS YOUR TELEPHONE Sid's Used Furniture Phone 564-6123 436 Charlotte Street, Sydney mm SCOTSBURN THE DAIRY BEST Cape Breton Dairymen Upper Prince Street andarSydport SYDNEY 564-2000 ICE CREAM . FROZEN FOOD ~ Working with and Committed to Serving the People of Cape Breton with Quality Dairy Products - 564-5581 MILK and DAIRY PRODUCTS