In a sharp statement last night, a lawyer for the Walkerton water inquiry implied that the Ontario government leaked part of a still-secret report on the disaster in an attempt to spin public reaction to its findings.
Commission counsel Paul Cavalluzzo expressed "extreme disappointment" that someone gave material purporting to be selected sections of the report to The Canadian Press.
CP distributed a story last night saying the report blames two incompetent and dishonest brothers who ran the town waterworks and a Conservative government determined to slash spending and red tape, in that order.
The E. coli outbreak killed seven people and made thousands ill in the spring of 2000.
"The report has been leaked shortly after its delivery to the provincial government on Monday, January 14, on the understanding it would not be released until Tuesday, January 22," Mr. Cavalluzzo's statement said.
The leak "did not originate with the commission," he said. Reached at his Toronto home, Mr. Cavalluzzo would not say who he thinks was responsible for the leak. Asked whether that person could prosecuted, he said: "Well, the report is in the custody of the Attorney-General, and that would be up to them as to whether they would pursue legal sanctions."
Attorney-General David Young responded with a statement deploring the leak and saying the government has treated the report with budget-like secrecy.
"Since their delivery to me, the government's copies of the report have been kept under police guard," he said. "To the best of our knowledge, the only other copies remain with the commission."
He added: "The police have been asked to investigate the circumstances surrounding the possible disclosure of this report. I treat the matter most seriously, out of respect both for the people of Walkerton and for the inquiry process."
Mr. Cavalluzzo also took issue with the way the report was described in the CP story. "Key conclusions have not been referred to and others are inaccurate. . . . The report, when released, will speak for itself," he said in his statement.
CP's editor-in-chief, Scott White, shrugged off the complaint, saying: "We're standing by our story. We wouldn't go with it if we weren't confident in our sources." He declined to name the sources.
The story said that people familiar with the report said it makes clear that Stan and Frank Koebel, who ran the Walkerton water system, bear the biggest responsibility.
As described in the story, the report says they ignored safety guidelines for disinfecting and monitoring the water, falsified records to avoid having their shoddy practices uncovered, and tried desperately to hide the emerging crisis as bacteria-laden water found its way to taps in the midwestern Ontario town of 5,000.
The story describes the report as containing these elements as well:
The report shows some sympathy for Mr. Harris's assertion that the province faced a dangerously high deficit when he came to office in 1995, but indicates that a commitment to deficit reduction and an ideological drive for privatization blinded the government to risks posed by its budget-cutting.
A key example of the government's priorities was the wholesale privatization in 1996 of the public laboratories that tested municipal water for contamination. Despite expert advice to implement the change over a two- to three-year period, the Tories rushed the privatization through in two months.
The province's top medical officer at the time, Richard Schabas, felt that Mr. Harris "turned his back on public health" when the Premier ejected him from a cabinet meeting in 1997 before he could convey his concern directly
Even worried scientists and other officials felt powerless to push for tighter rules with the government determined to slash red tape. The result was long-lasting confusion in the protocol for reporting bad water that kept health officials in the dark and allowed Stan Koebel to keep quiet when he learned the water was contaminated.
Under the former Liberal and New Democratic governments, the Koebel brothers became licensed water operators in the late 1980s and had their certificates upgraded several years later without formal training or testing. While grandfathering experienced operators may have been reasonable, the government should have checked their skills and insisted on training.
The situation was exacerbated by the Tory government's drastic downsizing of the Environment Ministry after 1995.
The Koebels' complacency about water safety came from a belief in the purity of well water and ignorance of the dangers posed by bacterial contamination. At the same time, the ministry either failed to uncover problems because of lax inspection or failed to act resolutely even after inspectors noted the brothers' substandard operation.
The local public health unit worked diligently to identify the source of the unprecedented outbreak in the face of disinformation from Stan Koebel, but, given the glaring holes in the notification requirements and a history of problems with the town's water, officials should have stepped in sooner.
Both the health unit and the municipality should also have done more to alert residents to the danger lurking in their taps once it was decided that the water was likely causing their illness.