A curious piece of small p politics.

In 1972, for reasons best known to the Goverment of New Brunswick, I was appointed Director of Pollution Control in the Department of Environment and Fisheries. While my previous employment had been mostly as a geophysicist, back then there were not many environmentalists and others in related fields tended to find themselves coopted into this relatively new area of work. I was also known for having worked on various groundwater projects in the Province, and I was a rare bird for another reason, I spoke and understood French reasonably well, an unusual attribute for an New Brunswick anglophone in those days.

When being interviewed for the post I was asked whether in view of my previous work history in Australia, the UK and Canada, I could be expected to stay with this position. My response was that I would stay for at least two years or until the organisation had acquired a reputation for validity. At this time the Canadian Council of Resource And Environment Ministers Government of Canada was conducting a national public participation program entitled Man and Resources. Which involved a broad spectrum of involvemen t working on various aspects found to be of significance at a Montebello Conference in 1972. My own involvement as a late comer to the process culminated at a provincial conference in Fredericton at the Lord Beaverbrook Hotel, which was cut short by the arrival of the biggest flood in recent history closing down the downtown. Before we fled the flood we elected a delegation to go to a national conference later in the year, I was elected a member of that delegation.

Soon afterwards I received a letter from the Secretariat asking if I wanted to be part of an English, French, or bilingual group at the conference, and I replied that I would prefer to be in a bilingual group. Not long after I was informed that they were not having bilingual groups, so I had to choose one language, and I chose French. On arrival at the Four Seasons in Toronto, we were told that the first night we would having dinner with the working group we were assigned to. It tured out that there were about fifteen in the group, nearly all from Quebec with one from Belgium, and one from New Brunswick. We were meant to introduce ourselves to each other so as to be prepared to select a spokesperson for the group the following day. This person would then represent the group in central group that would work on the outcome report.

The following morning we had our first official group meeting, with an animateur to assist. The first item on the agenda was for each person to introduce the person next to him (I do not recall any women in the group). I was a little I agreed without much thought about the implications. puzzled as the third or fourth person to be introduced, when he said that he would introduce me later. From the introductions it was fairly clear that were all rom significan organisations in Quebc, with the exception of the Belgian. After the circuit, my neighbour introduced me and said that I was the obvious choice for the role of rapporteur for the group and to represent them on the central committee. I agreed without much thought about the implications.

In addition to the elected delegates there were also the various Provincial Ministers from the Council of Resource and Environment, including Bill Cockburn who was my Minister and his wife Mardi. To make more interesting for the observers, the hotel television system provided closed circuit coverage of the conference, including the various cetral group meetings. The central group met after dinner and was provided with simultaneous translation to reflect the two official language groupsn o sign in those days of the indiginous languages. Unfortunately the meeting was going on enthusiastically when the interpreters announced that they had finished for the day. Obviously the group did not want to finish so I suggested that we proceeded with amateur interpretaion from me and a couple of of others, so we went on for another 40 minutes or so.

The next morning one of the Quebec members of our group said to me that the Quebec delegates had seen what I was planning and would support me! This left me somewhat baffled at the time. That evening the central group had to elect a smaller group to prepare the report of the conference. The committee were more or less split on political lines and the committee of three was one from the right, one from the left and me as chair, so that is what Quebec meant.

So we now add yet one more daily meeting, as the three of us struggled to produce a meaningful report on what had been going on. I succeeded in convincing my two colleagues tat a short and snappy report was the best solution rather than a long diatribe. We then had to present at a noon time meeting of the whole committee. As soon as we started we were attacked on the basis of our newspaper style, and in response I pointed out that Ministers we were writing the report for were busy people and preferred that we would get to the point, rather than delivering a diatribe. We were told to go away and rewrite. Unfortunately the session of the committee was carried on the hotel television system and the New Brunswick delegation, including the Minister, Bill Cockburn and his wife Mardi were watching.

When I returned to my room I found a note on the door.”May I have your resignation in five words or less” signed Mardi Cockburn. WE became friends then and remained friends until she died 49 years later

As for the revised report, it went nowhere.

 One critic labeled the effort as a “largely innocuous” forum “culminating in bureaucratic cooptation” of environmental concerns.