| Jul 29, 2010


Editorial by Jeff Green

Most people in Ontario had never heard of Stewardship Ontario until a couple of weeks ago, when the news about a dreaded new eco-tax began to surface.

The tax, which is really a fee, was supposed to be applied to all manufactured products that contain toxic materials and require a special, costly program in order to be disposed of safely. It has already been put in place rather successfully for tires and electronic equipment. On July 1, a botched attempt to extend it to a wide variety of products, ranging from soap to bleach to Portland cement and beyond, was rolled out.

As we all know it came back to haunt those who attempted it and turned into quite the black eye for the McGuinty Liberals, who are already facing a backlash over the HST. The eco-tax was hastily pulled and as of this week the whole thing has been frozen until it can be revamped.

It has also made people wonder about Stewardship Ontario, which is an odd duck indeed. The Board of Directors of Stewardship Ontario, which is a not-for-profit corporation, reads like a Who’s Who of the Ontario business elite. It includes VPs from McCains, Loblaws, Canadian Tire, Unilever, Sears and Apotex. Stakeholders that are listed include Waste Diversion Ontario and the Ministry of the Environment in addition to the stewards

Who are these stewards? Essentially they are the manufacturers of products that contain hazardous materials. Calling them stewards was a bit of a branding exercise. When we think of stewards we think of children planting trees or youth hauling rocks over for spawning beds. We think of landowners tending their woodlots. We think of Joe Purdon, who expanded a small number of orchids on his farm to a colony of 16,000.

These images are intentional. Stewardship Ontario was set up to engage the sources of household hazardous waste,- the producers and sellers of the products - into the goal of eliminating all the toxins in consumer products from the waste stream. Removing poisons from the land, from the watershed, is indeed an act of stewardship.

And Stewardship Ontario was, and still is, a good idea. Somehow producers and consumers must be the ones who carry out, and fund the reclamation of this kind of hazardous waste. Otherwise it would end up being charged to municipalities, which already have enough responsibilities.

The botched eco-tax introduction will have to be fixed, and sooner or later it will be. In the end, one way or another, if consumers continue to purchase products that contain poison, they will have to pay to safely deal with that poison once the product is thrown away.

But in addition to giving the McGuinty Liberals and some business people a black eye, the eco-tax debacle has damaged the branding of “stewardship” itself.

People believed the eco-tax was going to a bunch of tree huggers.

At least 10 years before someone got the idea of calling hazardous waste recycling “stewardship”, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources was facing budget cuts. The ministry could no longer afford to do education and land rehabilitation work. So they established stewardship councils in each rural county in southern Ontario. Local councils sought members, essentially among the “tree hugger” community, and the ministry provided $10,000 or $15,000 each year and funded a co-ordinator for each council.

The local stewardship councils are all affiliates of the Ontario Stewardship Council, but have nothing to do with Stewardship Ontario.

The councils meet regularly. They apply for funding from various sources, and they dole out money to habitat restoration project of various kinds, including tree planting, woodlot management, and spawning bed rehabilitation.

The Frontenac Stewardship Council, for example, includes about a dozen board members, from all four Frontenac townships. The council sponsors talks, such as the recent bear and eagle talks, is working on a school curriculum on water, and provides a few dollars for a number of local and regional projects. It has never, nor will it ever, receive money from the eco-tax, which can only be used for waste diversion.

Members of the Frontenac Stewardship Council (and I must disclose I am one of them) feel sort of like the Swiss watch-makers and financial management companies that bought into the Tiger Woods brand. One minute that brand meant integrity and efficiency and the next minute in meant cheating and a lack of self-control. Not exactly what watch-makers and financial management companies want.

It was easier for them to jettison Tiger Woods than it is for the Ontario Stewardship Councils to get rid of the stewardship moniker.

But maybe it’s worth a try.

Let’s see – what about the Frontenac Land and Water Council? Too academic sounding. Maybe Frontenac Tree Huggers? Too hippy-dippy. Frontenac Green Council? Too green. Frontenac Sustainability Council? Too unsustainable as a concept.

No, there is no solution to this problem.

We’ll have to just ride it out. Stewardship will eventually be rehabilitated as a brand.

Now, as for Tiger Woods …

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