I’m all for reinvesting in our northern communities, becoming self sufficient, and improving our economy.
We just have to be careful and not repeat the same mistakes we made in the early 1900s. We can do this quickly AND cleanly, it just takes more effort
There are dozens of lakes in northern Ontario polluted by mine tailings. We thought “oh, this poison can’t hurt anyone if we dump it in a lot of water”. And we were wrong.
Decades later we discovered the arsenic cycle. All those poisons and heavy metals we dumped in lakes continuously interact with organic materials and enter a cycle where they constantly continue to leach into the water, but are also constantly pulled out of sediment and mud, perpetually keeping the poison at the top.
There is still no research on how to fix this.
This is our drinking water. The lakes where kids swim. The animals we hunt drink from. And it’s indigenous lands that we share with them. Ontario is our home.
We know the risks, now let’s build and plan for them, and not make the same mistakes again and again.
“Quickly” is relative. We can move more quickly than we are certainly, while maintaining the forethought to prevent unnecessary harm, but we have to take a balanced approach. We don’t want to let perfect become the enemy of the good, but we also don’t need to make mistakes that cost us more down the road than we ever benefit from the development in the first place.
I’m all for reinvesting in our northern communities, becoming self sufficient, and improving our economy.
We just have to be careful and not repeat the same mistakes we made in the early 1900s. We can do this quickly AND cleanly, it just takes more effort
There are dozens of lakes in northern Ontario polluted by mine tailings. We thought “oh, this poison can’t hurt anyone if we dump it in a lot of water”. And we were wrong.
Decades later we discovered the arsenic cycle. All those poisons and heavy metals we dumped in lakes continuously interact with organic materials and enter a cycle where they constantly continue to leach into the water, but are also constantly pulled out of sediment and mud, perpetually keeping the poison at the top.
There is still no research on how to fix this.
This is our drinking water. The lakes where kids swim. The animals we hunt drink from. And it’s indigenous lands that we share with them. Ontario is our home.
We know the risks, now let’s build and plan for them, and not make the same mistakes again and again.
“Quickly” is relative. We can move more quickly than we are certainly, while maintaining the forethought to prevent unnecessary harm, but we have to take a balanced approach. We don’t want to let perfect become the enemy of the good, but we also don’t need to make mistakes that cost us more down the road than we ever benefit from the development in the first place.
Yes, that’s very well put, thank you.
I really want to see us do good, and revitalize the north, and liberate our country from having to pick the best evil in the moment.