At a time when the Trump Administration is taking its lumps for a proposal to cut funding for Great Lakes restoration, American officials are criticizing Canada for neglecting the lakes.
That's according to Windsor West MP Brian Masse, who is fresh from meetings with U.S. officials on how cutting funding to the Environmental Protection Agency will hurt restoration and research. He says it is difficult for Canada to claim the moral high ground.
"During a time when we saw these cutbacks, we thought we would have had more leadership," says Masse, referring to last week's federal budget, which did not include any increase in funding for Great Lakes restoration. "On the U.S. side, they have to preserve the funding. On the Canadian side, we need to at least live up to the Great Lakes funds and other types of initiatives."
Masse says he heard over and over again that Canada is not doing its part, and it is not just about money. For example, American lawmakers expressed their opposition to a plan to store low-level nuclear waste near Lake Huron.
"Government members from the Liberals, they were told in their face that say, for example, on the nuclear waste, not to do it," says Masse.
He says all the minister of natural resources has to do is reject the plan.
Masse believes part of the problem is that the federal government is focused on the east and west coasts, at the expense of the Great Lakes.
"We [the Great Lakes] don't get that same support," he says.
