Pulling the Garbage Goalie The KL  Press and the Last Days
of the Adams Mine by Charlie Angus HighGrader Magazine
January 2002
 
It may have been showboating. Or it could have been the
final descent into garbage madness. On the eve of Toronto
Council¹s vote to ratify the contract with Republic Waste of
Michigan, Kirkland Lake Council announced it was going to
play ³hardball² with Toronto to get the Adams Mine proposal
revived.
   
KL¹s tough talk made big splashes in the local media but
wasn¹t even noticed down in TO. Like the ignomious Black
Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, KL editorial
scribes found themselves flaying hopelessly at an opponent
that had long since walked away from the field.
Partly as a journalistic obligation and, partly because it¹s
just too funny to pass up, HighGrader presents you with the
last bizarre and bitter days of the Adams family......
 
From reading the Northern Daily News, you would have thought
Canada¹s largest city was shaking in its boots. Kirkland
Lake Mayor Bill Enouy had thrown down the gauntlet and it
was time Toronto listened up. At the November 20th council
meeting in Kirkland Lake, Enouy informed KL councillors that
he was giving the City two weeks to get serious about
negotiating another Adams Mine deal, or he was going to pull
his ³proposal² off the table.
   
The proposal, first floated in August (see Plan 9 from
Kirkland Lake, HighGrader September 2001), had already been
completely rejected by Toronto Works Committee. Critics had
dismissed the ³Enviroganics 2010² proposal as a
regurgitation of the old Adams Mine plan and the city was
adamant it would never go back to the Adams Mine.
   
But on the editorial pages of the Northern Daily News,
Enouy¹s ultimatum stood out as an act of Churchillian
resolve. In an editorial entitled ³It¹s Our Time to Play
Hardball² the scribes intoned that ³Enouy has finally come
to the conclusion that there¹s no sense playing Mr. Nice Guy
with politicians in Toronto.²     It¹s not the first time
Enouy has swung wildly at the big boys. In 1998, while still
a councillor, he denounced the National Post over an article
which described KL as the ³garbage capital of Canada².
   
National Post -- my ass,² said Enouy during a Council
meeting where he got so heated he had to step outside to
cool down. Enouy denounced the article as typical of the
³left wing, pinko press.² The Northern Daily News, however,
misquoted Enouy¹s attack as a denunciation of the ³left
wing, pickle press.
   
Pickle or pinko, when Enouy led the November attack on
Toronto, the Northern Daily News was fully onside. They made
the two week ultimatum resound like the righteous crack of
Sheriff Buford Pusser¹s baseball bat in the 70¹s b-movie
³Walking Tall.²     ³This time, Enouy isn¹t going to let
Toronto play politics. He¹s told them to take it or leave
it. It¹s a bold approach.²     What the paper didn¹t point
out is that the two week ultimatum coincided with Toronto¹s
upcoming vote to finally ratify its deal with Republic Waste
of Michigan. Once the vote was passed, there wouldn¹t be a
deal to make anyway.
   
The paper also overlooked another glaring problem with
the Enouy ultimatum ‹ in order to threaten an opponent, you
have to first get their attention. And nobody at Toronto
Council seemed remotely aware that Kirkland Lake Council was
demanding an 11th hour seat at the garbage negotiating
table.
   
HighGrader spoke with two Toronto Councillors who sit on
the Works Committee. Neither were aware of the impending
ultimatum. Said one, ³I don¹t understand what proposal
they¹re threatening to take off the table. As far as I know
there hasn¹t been a deal with Kirkland Lake since Rail Cycle
North refused to meet the terms of the contract last
October.²
 
To any outside observer, the High Noon talk emanating from
the Northern Daily News may have seemed delusional. For one,
the City was on the verge of voting on the Republic contract
‹ a vote that was seen by all City Hall watchers as a mere
rubber stamp to a deal which had been in the works for over
a year.
   
And secondly, the very mention of the Adams Mine made
Toronto politicians and media wince. The planned use of the
water-logged pits as a dump had resulted in the most
humiliating municipal defeat in City history.
Support for the Adams Mine had destroyed the political
career of TO powerhouse Bill Saundercook and sent other
councillors scurrying for electoral cover.
   
Even the normally bubbly Mayor Mel Lastman had seen his
reputation shredded during the fractious dump debate. Before
Adams Mine, Lastman was the mayor who could do no wrong.
After Adams Mine, he¹d become the guy who couldn¹t do right.
   
And yet, editorial writers in KL ignored the city¹s
clear opposition to the dump. They dismissed Toronto¹s new
plan, which included a major recycling effort, as simply
more ³worming around.²
 
Opponents of the Adams Mine have long accused the
Kirkland Lake media of blindly championing the Adams Mine.
   
Pierre Belanger, spokesman for the Against the Adams
Mine Coalition, speaking at an anti-dump rally on December
2nd, noted the fact that nobody from the Kirkland Lake media
was in attendance to cover the rally. It was the second such
rally in as many months which suffered the silent treatment
from the KL press (both events, however, were considered
newsworthy enough to be covered by outside media).
   
But if the KL media wasn¹t telling locals that the
Emperor¹s new dump proposal lacked clothes, neither was
Mayor Enouy. Having had doors slammed in his face since
January he should have easily been able to gauge the lack of
response his ultimatum would receive in Toronto.
   
The open hostility in Toronto for Adams Mine and its
backers was made abundantly clear at the November meeting of
Toronto Works. Enouy and McGuinty had attended this meeting
in the hopes of getting one more kick at the Adams Mine can.
Acting Works Chair, Jane Pitfield, however, made sure the
³buzz off² message was made as black and white as the
stripes on the Mayor¹s favourite bowling shirt.
   
 ³They told me I couldn¹t mention Adams Mine, Kirkland
Lake, Ontario,² Enouy later complained. ³Every time I went
to open my mouth the lady (Chairman Pitfield) said Œdon¹t go
there, don¹t say that, don¹t do that.¹ It was completely
rude and unacceptable. That democracy won¹t listen to the
people.²    
 
The November Works meeting may have been an
embarrassing rout for the proud Mayor, but the Northern
Daily News put a wild spin on the Enouy defeat. ³Living in a
Dream World² ‹ blared a full-barrelled front page headline.
According to the article, it wasn¹t Enouy, McGuinty or the
Northern Daily News staff that were living in the dream
world ‹ but Councillor Pitfield for refusing to buy another
Adams Mine pitch.
 
 
Waiting for Harris        
 
With days ticking down to the Toronto vote, the Northern Daily News began to turn up the rhetoric. Toronto Councillors were now depicted as having ignored the voice of the ³people² and Premier Mike Harris
was needed to teach a lesson to those nasty TO councillors.
According to one editorial,³Toronto Council is once again
mistreating the people of Kirkland Lake and it¹s time
Premier Mike Harris stepped in and did something.²     The
prospect of Harris intervening and overturning a city vote
in order to help revive a contract for a North Bay company
might have seemed  to most a staggering undermining of the
democratic process. The Northern Daily News, however, saw
this intervention as the salvation of democracy. ³It¹s time
democracy was restored at Toronto City Council....Mr.
Harris, we¹re waiting.²    
 
KL¹s call for Big Mike was being echoed on a more serious
level in the Premier¹s hometown of North Bay. Gordon McGuinty, realizing that he was just days from economic oblivion, began
to publicly push the Premier to derail the vote.
   
At a press conference held on November 21st in North
Bay, Gordon McGuinty stood in front of a banner that
proclaimed: ³Premier Harris: do what you said you would do².
McGuinty wanted Harris to order an EA of the Michigan plan,
thereby throwing Toronto¹s garbage plans once more into
chaos.
   
The public challenge to the now lame-duck premier was a
dangerous political play to make. Harris had taken a fair
bit of heat for his backroom maneuverings on behalf of the
North Bay consortium (see Pulling the Trigger HighGrader
March 2001). With his party and his reputation in rough
waters, the Premier didn¹t need to be outed in his home town
for promises he made to the consortium ‹ many of whom were
known friends.
   
Undeterred by the Premier¹s public rejection, McGuinty
then called on the Environment Ministry to intervene. The
Ministry, run by leadership hopeful Elizabeth Witmer, said
no, as did Environment Commissioner (and fellow North Bay
boy) Gord Miller.
   
With days ticking away to the TO vote, Gordon McGuinty
was running out of options. The consortium¹s frustration
with Harris was made abundantly clear in a full page ad in
the North Bay Nugget that read ‹³Where¹s Mike Harris When
You Need Him?²     The very next day they received their
answer when Harris¹ faithful lieutenant Chris Hodgson
stepped into the fray. Hodgson took Toronto media completely
off guard when he mused about ordering a review of the
Toronto plan. ³All options are on the table², said Hodgson
to a surprised press ³including the Adams Mine.²     And on
what possible grounds did the Tories see intervening?
Hodgson replied using the marketing slogan of the Adams Mine
consortium ‹ ³We should have a Made in Ontario Solution²
said Hodgson.
   
Hodgson¹s threatened intervention reawakened the Against
the Adams Mine coalition and Toronto media were once again
buzzing about Tory interference in bringing back the dump.
   
But the media heat was all too much for Hodgson who
retreated from the debate as fast as he could.
 
The final vote came on December 4th. City Councillors seemed
determined to nail the Adams Mine lid shut and pour concrete
on the coffin. Councillor Pitfield stood up and made
reference to Mayor ³Annoy² of Kirkland Lake (the
mispronunciation could have been accidental). Lastman
reiterated his famous ³the Adams Mine is d-e-d² phrase even
more pointedly. ³Kirkland Lake is d-e-d, dead,² he said.
Soon after, Council voted 38-2 to sign the Republic deal.
   
The indefatigable Gordon McGuinty dismissed the vote.
³Rest assured, the Adams Mine is not off the table.² Within
days he was talking about raising fish in the Adams Mine
waters, but only as a stop-gap until he opened the pits for
garbage.
   
The morning after the vote, however, KL Council met and
quietly voted to take their ³offer² off the table.
Said Mayor Enouy, ³It doesn¹t preclude us from ever bringing
it back but what it does is send a message, I think, to
Toronto.²
 
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