Ottawa and the provinces, and Quebec’snstatus within — or edging out ofn— the federation.nBecause America’s industries accountnfor up to 70 percent of the acidnrain falling in some regions of Canada,nit was assumed to be a matter fornOttawa to tackle with Washington, andnCanada’s ambassadors — first AllannCotlieb and now Derek Burney —nspent a lot of their time doing exactlynthat. (Somewhat less publicized is thatnCanada’s sulphur dioxide emissions, perncapita, are about double those of thenU.S.) At home, although significantnprogress was made in emission reductionnand energy conservation, the culpablenindustries are basic to the nationalneconomy; forcing them into uneconomicalnmeasures would affect the nationalnstandard of living.nAll the while, environmentalists werenplugging away at their theme: acid rainnwas killing the fish and eventually itnwould kill us, too. In the fourth editionnof its Acid Rain Primer, the PollutionnProbe Foundation reprinted from 11nyears ago its report on the death ofnNellie Lake, the subject decades beforenof a work by Canada’s best-knownnpainter, A.Y. Jackson:nBoth the artist and the lake arennow dead. Jackson died after anlong and respected creativencareer. Nellie Lake died in thenyouth of its ordinarilynanticipated life. Its fishnpopulations slipped awayngradually and silently, victims ofnacidification from rain andnsnow, polluted by sulphur andnnitrogen oxides from smeltersnand power plants many milesnaway.nCanada’s David Suzuki has communicatednhis passion for protecting thenenvironment to listeners and viewers inn82 other countries. Writing in Harrowsmith,nDavid Lees described how Suzuki’sn”weekly appearances on CBC’snThe Nature of Things have made himnas recognizable as [Canadian PrimenMinister] Brian Mulroney, and his participationnin the 1985 eight-part specialnseries A Planet for the Taking and then1989 two-hour special Amazonia . . .nsecured his stature as the environmentalnconscience of the nation.”nIf there is one thing that emergesnfrom the Special Committee’s studies.n54/CHRONICLESnit is the key role that advances inntechnology must play in reducingnharmful emissions. Yet Lees also refersnto Suzuki’s “unconditional rejection ofntechnology and economic growth,”nand this brings us to the politics of thenmatter.nApril 1990 saw two events of singularnimport: clearance, in committee, ofnblocks to the passage of a Clean AirnAct by the United States Congress;nand issuance by the Canadian governmentnof a “green plan” intended “tonmake Canada, by the year 2000, thenindustrial world’s most environmentallynfriendly country.”nBefore he resigned in May (over anmatter unconnected with the environment),nthe environmental minister,nLucien Bouchard, launched a series ofnpublic hearings, the results of whichnwill form the basis of legislation. Thenpolitical implications were twofold.nFirst, he would disarm both the conservativesnwho accuse his ProgressivenConservative Party of being too progressive,nand the professional environmentalistsnwho accuse it of not beingnprogressive enough: all would haventheir say. Second, by easing “the mostnenvironmentally friendly country” towardnthe top of the political agenda inntime for the next federal election inn1992, he would chip away at his party’snpresent unpopularity.nCanadians are increasingly awarenthat they are ruled by political elitesnwho ignore majority opinion and listennonly to advocacy groups, most ofnwhich are funded from taxes. SonBouchard plays the populist. If thenpeople crave majority rule as the antidotento the advocacy groups they see asngoverning them now, he’ll be glad tonaccommodate them with a governmentnthat listens to the majority.nOr appears to; for experience showsnthat his hearings will be a second homento the advocacy groups, which arenpracticed in public speaking and thenpresentation of papers and which outnumbernthe rank and file (who are toonbusy earning a living) and outgun thenrepresentatives of business and industry.nAnd the advocates’ thrust is towardngovernment action; not merely Canadianngovernment action, but internationalnaction: in short, toward the NewnInternational Economic Order.nBut government action carried to annextreme, as in Eastern Europe and thennnSoviet Union, not only devastates thenhuman and physical environments; itndoes so in the same condition of zeroneconomic growth that environmentalistsnsuch as David Suzuki now advocatenfor the West. Those newly liberatednand impoverished peoples in thenEast seek the intertwining of economicnfreedom with political freedom that isnindispensable to peaceful evolutionnand the creation of wealth. We, whontake political freedom for granted, seenour economic freedom increasinglyneroded by governments intervening innthe marketplace.nIf the government’s green plan succeedsnin raising the national consciousness,nit will have done its work, andnit should stop there. Out of enlightenednself-interest, individuals, whethernsingly or in businesses, will respondnspontaneously, as they are doing already.nIn his book, A Killing Rain, ThomasnPawlick describes measures taken andecade ago by Kidd Creek Mines andnDow Chemical, both in Ontario, tonrecapture sulphur dioxide emissions,nwhich enabled them “to come close tonenergy self-sufiBciency in many ofn[their] operations, drastically cuttingnoverhead costs.”nLast year, Adam Zimmerman,nchairman of Canada’s leading pulp andnpaper company, told a Canadian Clubnaudience:nA big modern pulp mill replantsnall the wood it uses and thusnmaintains a sustained yieldnforest. It produces an effluentnthat is drinkable and virtuallynundetectable 10 milesndownstream, doing no harmnalong the way, and it maynproduce about a sugar cube’snworth of dioxin in say 300,000ntons of production.nThe government will do well to benguided less by professional advocatesnthan by its own stated aim. An environmentallynfriendly country will benfriendly also to what Friedrich Hayekncalls free growth and spontaneous evolution.nKenneth McDonald’s third book onnCanadian politics, Keeping CanadanTogether, was just published. Henlives in Toronto.n