Newsgroups: nccn.issues,can.general
Path: utzoo!telly!evan
From: evan@telly.on.ca (Evan Leibovitch)
Subject: Re: Attikamek-Montagnais Protest PCB Plan
Message-ID: <620791816.24086@telly.on.ca>
Organization: Telly Online, Brampton, Ontario
References: <2324@yunccn.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Date: Sun, 3 Sep 89 02:10:15 GMT

In article <2324@yunccn.UUCP> lorrilee@yunccn.UUCP (Lorrilee McGregor) writes:

>The Attikamek-Montagnais have joined in the growing campaign " to
>prevent Quebec from storing PCB's at a power-generating station near
>Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's home town of Baie Comeau."

>'"Our position is categoric - we will not accept them," Ghislain Picard,
>vice-president of the 11,000 member Attikamek-Montagnais band said
>yesterday. 

OK - who SHOULD accept them? The Welsh, who had nothing to do with their
creation? Have a court order which would have a ship dump them in the
ocean rather than unloading them back at their source?

Maybe this is overly simplistic, but why isn't the company which used the
PCBs soley responsible for their disposal? Perhaps if the companies
which use hazardous materials had to factor in the cost of using (and
disposing) such materials without leaning on the public purse, perhaps
hazardous materials would just become too expensive to use.

There should be not just moral, but financial reward to the companies
which produce safer materials. In my eyes, private industry won't do much
to help the environment until safer can be directly equated to cheaper in
the eyes of producers and users.

The obvious government knee-jerk reaction is to slap a tax on hazardous
goods. I don't think this is needed - just make users of such materials
*totally* responsible for their after-effects.
-- 
  Evan Leibovitch, SA, Telly Online, located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario
evan@telly.on.ca / uunet!attcan!telly!evan / Director & editor, /usr/group/cdn
   If you'll be my Dixie chicken, I'll be your Tennesee lamb - Little Feat