A bulldozer pushes garbage around at Vancouver landfill in Delta July 13, 2011.John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail
B.C.'s environment minister is moving to put a lid on a growing party dispute over burning Metro Vancouver's garbage, an issue one pundit says is ripe for the pickings by the B.C. Conservative Party.
Cariboo-Chilcotin MLA Donna Barnett is the third member of the Liberal caucus to voice opposition to the government's conditional backing of a garbage incinerator in Metro Vancouver as part of the urban region's proposed waste reduction plans.
Ms. Barnett, the government's parliamentary secretary for regional economic development, said Tuesday Metro Vancouver's plans to burn garbage threatens to turn Cache Creek, population, 1,100, into a ghost town.
Ms. Barnett joins Fraser Valley Liberal MLA's John van Dongen and John Les, parliamentary secretary to Premier Christy Clark, who have already voiced their opposition to Metro Vancouver's incineration proposal on the grounds that Abbotsford and Chilliwack are already choking on Vancouver's smog and they don't need any more.
"My concern is what will happen to Cache Creek," said Ms. Barnett. "I've watched a community that would otherwise become a ghost town become a sustainable community and have a great lifestyle for their citizens."
Metro Vancouver started trucking city garbage to Cache Creek, located about 335 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, in the early 1990s. The landfill employs about 120 people.
Ms. Barnett said she wrote to the mayor of Cache Creek and the village council stating her opposition to Metro Vancouver's plans.
She said she's met with Environment Minister Terry Lake, but despite their differences, she believes going public will not hurt the government.
"We are one big group and we'll always have differences from time to time, and I think it's very positive when you can speak them out," Ms. Barnett said.
Mr. Lake said he understands Ms. Barnett's concerns and the views of the Fraser Valley Liberals, but he would have preferred to have held deeper discussions with the three Liberals about the waste proposal before they issued public statements.
"We can't look at things in isolation," said Mr. Lake. "As minister of the environment, I have to look at things from a provincial scope, and I have to look at things from the best environmental outcomes possible."
Last month, Mr. Lake gave conditional approval to Metro Vancouver's plan to cut the amount of garbage the region creates by 70 per cent within four years.
The plan includes conditions that force Metro Vancouver to consult with the Fraser Valley Regional District about any plans to incinerate or transport waste that could end up in the Fraser Valley in one form or another.
Mr. Lake said the plan still leaves open chances for Fraser Valley residents to protest the incinerator and the dump in Cache Creek could have another 24-year lifespan if it can attract someone's garbage.
He rejected suggestions that the concerns voiced by the three Liberals could increase political tensions for the government.
"We're a coalition of Liberals and Conservatives, and we don't always think the same way," Mr. Lake said. "We don't always agree on things. I think it's healthy to have debate within a caucus about different decisions."
Hamish Telford, head of the political science department at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, said air quality is already a sensitive issue in the area and anything with the potential to degrade the already heavily polluted air shed is bound to be met with fierce opposition.
Mr. Telford said the Liberals expected opposition in the Fraser Valley, but likely calculated that the overwhelmingly free enterprise voting area will stick with the government no matter what happens with Metro Vancouver's garbage.
The chance of Mr. Les's or Mr. van Dongen's ridings or most other Fraser Valley ridings electing New Democrats are virtually non-existent, but the garbage project could help the seat-less B.C. Conservatives, led by former federal Tory MP John Cummins, he said.
"The beneficiaries are not going to be the NDP in the valley," said Mr. Telford. "If there's going to be any beneficiaries it's going to be the upstart Conservatives."
Mr. Cummins could not be immediately reached for comment.