By Brian Madigan LL.B.
The Court has handed down a rather stiff penalty to three men who operated a waste disposal site. Jail terms of three to six months were awarded against the men and $1.7 million in fines assessed against their companies.
A fire occurred at the Vaughan waste transfer site in October 2004. The fire broke out and continued to burn for two weeks. They were supposed to have 1,500 tons of garbage but when the fire occurred they had over 19,000 tons. Obviously, this was a flagrant abuse and not surprisingly, hence the stiff penalties.
In fact, one of the accused had two years earlier been assessed a penalty of $710,000 and been ordered to stay out of the waste management business. However, that didn’t stop him.
The cleanup cost the taxpayers in excess of one million dollars. You can very well imagine the number of attempts made by the Fire Department and other officials under the Environmental Protection Act to have the waste facility cleaned up.
Operating at more than ten times capacity, the risk of fire and the risk of contamination was excessive. The track record of those involved made in apparent that it was easier and far more profitable simply to ignore the law and continue to operate an unsafe facility.
So, on the one hand, four years after the event, the penalties may seem appropriate, why wasn’t this facility simply shut down before the fire? An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.
Brian Madigan LL.B., Realtor is an author and commentator on real estate matters,
Coldwell Banker Innovators Realty
905-796-8888
