Jim Bradley Returns To Portfolio He Loved Best

A Commentary by Doug Draper

He’s  back in the environmental saddle again.

Jim Bradley, the veteran St. Catharines MPP – now the longest serving member in the Ontario legislature – is going to be the minister of environment for this province once again, and that may be some cause for celebration.

The reason I say it maybe is that Jim Bradley first served as Ontario’s environment minister in 1985 through 1990, when his Liberals formed the government, first during a two-year coalition with then Bob Rae’s NDP, and for three more years with a majority Liberal government, led by then premier David Peterson, for another three years.

Through that time, Jim Bradley remained arguably the best environment minister this province has ever had. Certainly, the famed environmentalist and host of the Nature of Things, David Suzuki, has said that over and over again. I have hardly ever heard Suzuki speak to a group in this province over the past few decades – and I’ve heard him speak a number of times and over the borders in New York and Michigan – without pointing out that Bradley was, in his view, the best environment minister Ontario has ever had.
As someone who has covered environment issues over the past three decades, I believe that is true. You would have to have been around in the 1970s and 80s, when the environment movement was struggling in this province and country, to realize what a renaissance it was when Peterson government and Bradley took charge of the environment portfolio in Ontario in 1985.

Almost overnight, everything changed. The province’s Ministry of Environment became a champion for fighting pollution to the land, water and air, and we saw the advent of Blue Box recycling, and the list goes on. Peterson, much to his credit, backed Bradley most, if not all of the time, and he was, in my opinion, the last premier we had that truly gave a damn about environment issues.

I last talked to Peterson a half dozen years ago when Margherita Howe, the former leader of a citizens group called Operation Clean and a hell of a force for protecting the Niagara River and Great Lakes, left this earth she cared so much to keep clean. David Peterson called me because he wanted to share a testimonial for Margherita – a person too many governments these days might not want to praise at all. David Peterson had this to say – “Margherita was larger than life (and) she was a force to be reckoned with.” Peterson was generous enough to say those things about a citizen activist even though he was nipping at his heals for more action all of the time.

At the same time, Bradley said of Margherita – “She had a profound effect on environmental issues in Niagara and the province of Ontario.”

Bradley is once again assuming the environment portfolio at a time when there is no Margherita Howe, who belonged to a grass roots group that was non-partisan and never took publoic money, and there may not be a premier like David Peterson who cared, at a gut level, about environment issues.

He is also taking back that portfolio at a time when the economy is in the dumps and it appears more people would rather have a job if it means drinking dirtier water or breathing filthier air.

All we can do, if we give a damn about a healthy environment, is wish Bradley the best as he takes up this role again.  We’ve got lot’s of challenges, from climate change to new threats to the waters of our Great Lakes, that need to be addressed. He’s got a helluva job before him.

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