Excerpt from Part 3: Incinerators - The Next Generation "Waste Circus" Coming to Canada
by Joyce Nelson
Preferential Treatment
In Canada, the federal government has been doling out funding to this sector, with billions of dollars available both for WTE companies and for municipalities to invest in WTE incineration via P3s.
For years, the point-man on the WTE incineration issue at the federal level has been Bob Mills, the five-term (1993-2008) MP from Red Deer, Alberta, and one of the original Reform Party MPs. Before retiring from office in 2008 to become the registered lobbyist for Ottawa-based Plasco Energy Group, Mills was the Alliance/Conservative environment critic (as of 2001), then a member of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development (2005-2007), and then Chair of that powerful Committee (2007-2008).
By 2005, Mills had become a committed believer in gasification WTE incineration for MSW and had convinced his Red Deer constituency to take a trip to Germany to see WTE incineration in action.
In that same year, Plasco brought Ottawa businessman Rod Bryden on board as President. Toronto's Now Magazine (April 5, 2007) called Bryden "a deep Liberal insider, the largest single donor to [Ontario Premier] Dalton McGuinty's 1996 leadership campaign ($10 grand) [and] co-chair of Stephane Dion's leadership transition team."