TORONTO STAR, Thursday, May 19th, 1994.
MERE MINISTERS ARE NO MATCH FOR MO OF THE JUNGLE
Thomas Walkom,
Queen's Park
Maurice Strong's jungle adventure lives.
The Hydro chairman won't back down from his plan to investigate the purchase of thousands of acres of rain forest in Costa Rica.
Yesterday, he told reporters it would be "irresponsible" for Hydro not to consider buying a piece of the Central American jungle.
He said such a move would cost the publicly owned utility mere tens of thousands of dollars. Jaded scribes had assumed that Hydro's imperial thrust had been thwarted on Tuesday.
That was when Economic Development Minister Frances Lankin told the Legislature that as far as she was concerned, Hydro's jungle plan was a no-go.
"I find it astounding that we would be considering, particularly in these times, to spend ratepayers' money in that way," she said. "As one minister of the Crown, my advice to the Premier and the minister would be to say we wouldn'tsupport this kind of expenditure."
That sounded definitive.
Lankin is one of the most senior members of cabinet. Under provincial law, the cabinet has the power to tell Hydro what to do.
But few reckoned with Maurice Strong. The 65-year-old energy entrepreneur has been around the block a few times.
He's dealt with presidents and kings, arms merchants and moguls.
He has run international summits.
He knows Pierre Trudeau
He's supped at the home of Premier Bob Rae's father, Saul. He owned his own company when Frances Lankin was still a toddler.
More 20 years ago, THE NEW YORKER magazine lauded Strong as the man upon whom "the survival of civilization in something like its present form might depend."
So when a minister of the Crown suggested that perhaps it wouldn't be the wisest use of money in the world for Hydro to buy a rain forest, Strong was undeterred.
He said that comments made "impulsively"'by a cabinet minister wouldn't move him.
He pointed out that he is the head of Hydro. "In the final analysis, we have a responsibility to carry out our duties," he said.
Indeed, a newspaper with less grace than THE STAR m ight have summed up the chairman's comments in the following pithy fashion "Mo to Earth: Butt out." Faced with the iron will of Chairman Maurice, the cabinet became more circumspect.
Questioned in the Legislature yesterday, Lankin said that she still thought it unwise for an Ontario crown corporation to buy a jungle.
But, she added, now that the issue has become controversial, everyone should wait for Energy Minister Bud Wildman to return and sort matters out.
Anyway, as she explained later to reporters, it was just her personal opinion.
Speaking for Rae, who is in China, Deputy Prime Minister Floyd Laughren echoed the same cautious sentiment.
Wildman, at a native affairs meeting in Quebec, has been wisely keeping his head down.
Strong's personal interest in the jungles of Costa Rica stems from two sources.
First, he owns a hotel complex on 300 hectares of land in that country. His hotel business got him in some trouble with both the Costa Rican government and a local Indian band which claimed he had built on their property.
Second, Strong is - as Lankin reiterated yesterday - a man most interested in enviromental questions.
It is all so simple.
Hydro burns coal, which creates carbon dioxide. This leads to the gradual temperature increases known as global warming.
Trees eat carbon dioxide.
If Hydro can keep some alive, then perhaps they will eat some of the carbon dioxide it produces.
Lesser minds might suggest, as did Lankin yesterday, that Hydro should plant trees in Ontario.
Really miniscule minds might suggest that if Hydro were truly interested in preventing global warming, it shouldn't be building coal-fired generating plants in already polluted China.
Absolutely infinitesimal minds might argue that Strong's adopt-a-rain-forest policy is a form of blood money - maintain trees far away so you can pollute with impunity at home.
Such mental midgetry would miss the point. As the poet so aptly put it many years ago: "I am you and you are me and we are all together... I am the walrus. Koo-koo-ka-choo."
Or as Chairman Mo said yesterday: "Why not Costa Rica?"
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