Counterpoint: Agreements Will Invite More Diversions

  • The proposed Annex 2001 agreement is the subject of lively debate as to whether it will help or hinder the conservation of the Great Lakes (Photo by Jeremy Lounds)

Officials from the eight states and two provinces in the region have proposed two agreements that would regulate the use of Great Lakes water. They’re known as the Annex 2001 Implementing Agreements. Response to the proposed agreements has generally been positive. But for some in the region, they’re seen as a slippery slope. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston is worried that the proposed agreements will lead to unlimited diversions in the future:

Transcript

Officials from the eight states and two provinces in the region have proposed two agreements
that would regulate the use of Great Lakes water. They’re known as the Annex 2001 Implementing
Agreements. Response to the proposed agreements has generally been positive. But for some in
the region, they’re seen as a slippery slope. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne
Elston is worried that the proposed agreements will lead to unlimited diversions in the future:


In theory, the proposed Agreements are supposed to provide a framework for using the water of the
Great Lakes. In reality, they’re about as leaky as a sunken lake freighter. The framework’s
there, but they fail to impose an overall limit on the volume of water that can be diverted,
or who can take it.


Not only that, but proposals to take less than a million gallons per day out of the basin won’t
require a region-wide review, several of these smaller withdrawals could eventually add up to a
whole lot of water. And whether it’s one large pipe or a lot of tiny ones, the end result is the
same.


Given that the Great Lakes basin contains 20% of all the fresh water on the planet, diverting
some of it shouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, only 1% of that water is renewed each year.
It would be a good idea to first figure out how much water can be taken without disrupting the
ecological balance of the Lakes. Only once that’s been done should we be looking at allowing
large-scale withdrawals.


And then there’s the threat of trade challenges. Each state or province that approves a water
taking permit won’t be paid directly for the water. Instead they’ll recieve a funding to upgrade
sewage treatment plants or to improve local habitats for example. Recently, a Canadian non-profit
asked for legal opinion about the Agreements. The response was that linking the approval process
to funding for public works basically means that the water is being sold, and under the terms of
NAFTA, once you’ve identified something as a commodity, you can’t restrict its sale.


Canadians should be particularly concerned about these Agreements. The Council of Great Lakes
Governors drafted them. And although the premiers of Ontario and Quebec have signed off on them,
in the end, neither province has the right to veto the decisions made by the Council. In my book,
that’s a lot like being invited to dinner and then being asked to leave before the main course.
And the reverse is true too. If Ontario or Quebec approves a withdrawal, states in the U.S.
wouldn’t have the ability to veto the decision. We share these lakes. If we are all called on
to protect the Great Lakes, then we all need to have an equal voice. That’s why our federal
representatives in Washington D.C. and Ottawa need to draw up a binding international agreement
on water withdrawals.


If nothing else, the proposed Agreements have made it clear that the Great Lakes must be
protected. And with 40 million users already relying on this irreplaceable resource, we clearly
need something better than these Agreements currently have to offer.


Host Tag: Suzanne Elston is a syndicated columnist living in Courtice, Ontario.

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Northern Neighbor Curbs Pesticide Use

While the U.S. continues to struggle over the use of pesticides, its neighbor to the north has recently taken some major steps toward restricting its use. Earlier this year Canada’s largest grocery chain announced that its 440 garden centers would be pesticide-free by 2003. In the wake of this announcement the Canadian government introduced amendments to its 33 year-old pesticide control act. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says that while this is welcome news… “what took so long?”:

Transcript

While the U.S. continues to struggle over the use of pesticides, its neighbor to the north has recently taken some major steps toward restricting its use. Earlier this year, Canada’s largest grocery chain announced that its 440 garden centers would be pesticide-free by 2003. In the wake of this announcement, the Canadian government introduced amendments to its 33 year-old pesticide control act. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says that while this is welcome news, “What took so long?”

Contrary to popular belief, there are at least three things that you can’t avoid – death, taxes and pesticides. Pesticides are everywhere – in our food, in our water and in the air that we breathe.

Ever since the publication of Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, 40 years ago, many environmentalists have expressed their concern that anything that can kill other living organisms must also have an effect on human health. They have patiently gathered evidence while encouraging the scientific community to do the same. But despite our growing awareness of the dangers of pesticides, progress toward restricting their use has been painstakingly slow.

And then came Hudson. A decade ago this small Quebec town passed a local by-law to restrict the cosmetic use of pesticides. Cosmetic use generally means using them to improve the appearance of lawns and gardens. Two lawn care companies immediately took the town to court. The ensuing legal battle dragged on for ten years. But the town’s remarkable tenacity paid off. Last year the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously upheld Hudson’s right to legislate the use of pesticides and encouraged other municipalities to do the same.

The Supreme Court decision literally opened a floodgate of activity. Hundreds of municipalities that had been waiting for the Hudson ruling are now proceeding with their own pesticide legislation.

Even the traditionally conservative Canadian Cancer Society – known for its “cancer can be beaten” philosophy is calling for a ban on the cosmetic use of pesticides known to cause cancer. Apparently, cancer not only can be beaten – it can be prevented.

Then in March a modern day corporate miracle happened. The Loblaw’s grocery chain announced that it would be pesticide free in all of its 440 garden centers by next year. What was so amazing about the giant retailer’s announcement is that a cancer victim inspired it. After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997, a young Canadian doctor went on a one-woman campaign to ban pesticide use. Dr. Bruinsma’s story caught the attention of a Loblaw’s company official and the rest is corporate history.

It was only after all of this, that the Canadian government finally introduced a long promised update of its 33 year-old pesticide act. While the bill isn’t perfect, it is a step in the right direction – the direction that environmentalists have been pointing to for decades.

The Canadian Cancer Society, Loblaws, even the Canadian government are making some dramatic shifts in direction thanks to the extraordinary efforts of ordinary citizens – many of them cancer patients, like Dr. Bruinsma. While struggling with their own disease they have gathered evidence about the harmful effects of pesticides in the hopes of preventing others from suffering the same fate.

Sadly, Dr. Bruinsma didn’t live to see the change in Loblaw’s corporate policy. She died of breast cancer just a few short weeks before the announcement was made. Ironically, Rachel Carson, the great-grandmother of the anti-pesticide movement also lost her life to breast cancer a few years after Silent Spring was published in 1962. What we can learn from their deaths – and their remarkable lives – is that change, as always, starts with the power of one.

Parental Common Sense

Two recent medical studies have shed some light on the cause and possible prevention of childhood asthma. The first, a Canadian study, examines the relationship between breastfeeding and the risk of developing childhood asthma. The second study out of southern California indicates a connection between smog and childhood asthma rates. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says that the reports confirm what the parents of many asthmatic children have understood all along:

Transcript

Two recent medical studies have shed some light on the cause and possible prevention of childhood asthma. The first, a Canadian study, examines the relationship between breastfeeding and the risk of developing childhood asthma. The second study out of southern California indicates a connection between smog and childhood asthma rates. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says that the reports confirm what the parents of many asthmatic children have understood all along:

I’ll never forget the day that the pediatrician marched into our infant daughter’s hospital room and demanded that I stop breastfeeding her. Sarah had been in intensive care for several weeks in an attempt to control her asthma – without success. Her doctor turned to the only remaining variable he could identify – breast milk. My husband and I were convinced that the immunological benefits of breastfeeding offered Sarah the best chance for survival. We put up such a stink that within 24 hours Sarah was allowed to resume breastfeeding. Months later, a specialist at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children not only commended our decision – he felt that breastfeeding had probably saved Sarah’s life.

Eight years later a new study out of the same Toronto hospital confirms our parental intuition. According to the report, breastfeeding actually protects children against asthma. The longer they breastfeed, the more protection they’re offered. The study found that when infants were breastfed for nine months or longer, the risk of asthma and wheezing was reduced by 50%.

The results of the study are no surprise to me. It has been eight years since Sarah first left the oxygen tent that was her home as an infant. Today, her once life-threatening condition has been replaced by a mild asthma. It’s only triggered when she has a bad cold or if she’s exposed to high levels of air pollution.

Which leads me to a second study out of Southern California. Researchers there have spent eight years studying the effects of ground level ozone on childhood asthma. They’ve concluded that ozone not only triggers asthmatic attacks, it can actually cause it.

What both these studies confirm is that environmental factors – both positive and negative – can have a dramatic effect on the incidence and severity of asthma. As the parents of a severely asthmatic child, these are common sense lessons that we learned by carefully observing our daughter. For us, they simply confirm what we already knew.

The big lesson here is that parental observation and intuition provide us with valuable tools for protecting our children’s health – often years before the scientific community reaches the same conclusions. Unfortunately, this anecdotal evidence is too often dismissed as being unscientific -as if that were the watermark that everything should be measured by. In light of these recent studies, maybe its time we considered the importance of good ol’ common sense.

Suzanne Elston is a syndicated columnist living in Courtice, Ontario. She comes to us by way of the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.

WEBSITE INFO:

“Breastfeeding and Asthma is Young Children – Findings from a Population -Based Study”, Sharon Dell, MD, Teresa To, PhD., (November 2001) can be found at the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine website at www.archpediatrics.com

Information about the Children’s Health Study can be found at the National Institute of Health Studies at www.niehs.nih.gov/oc/news/ozasth.htm and the California EPA site at arbis.arb.ca.gov/newsrel/nr013102.htm

Honoring a Fallen Activist

The Great Lakes Basin hosts 44 nuclear reactors, plus a variety of uranium mining and refining facilities and nuclear waste dumps. Their presence has been contentious and divisive, and critics of nuclear power have often been seen as extremists who have polarized the issue. But one remarkable Canadian activist managed to bring both sides of the debate together. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says her recent death is a tragedy for all Great Lakes residents:

Distancing Ourselves From Our Food

Not too long ago, the fall harvest season was celebrated for its bounty of locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables. Thanks to the globalization of our food system, we can now buy fresh produce 365 days of the year. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says the end result is that most of us have no idea where our food actually comes from:

Transcript

Not too long ago, the fall harvest season was celebrated for its
bounty of locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables. Thanks to the
globalization of our food system we can now buy fresh produce 365
days of the year. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne
Elston says the end result is that most of us have no idea where our
food actually comes from.

As a kid I grew up near the Okanagan Valley near Canada’s west coast.
The area was famous for its fruit trees. During harvest time, my
parents would stop at a roadside stand and buy a basket of cherries
and put then in the back seat for my sister and I to entertain
ourselves with. The first thing we’d do is look for double hung
cherries to hang over our ears like drop earrings. Then we’d bite one
of the cherries and use the sweet juice to paint our lips and cheeks.
We’d throw back our heads and do our very best Marilyn Monroe
impression before diving into the remaining fruit. We’d fill our
mouths to the point of bursting, and then spit the pits at each
other, giggling and laughing in a fit of harvest bliss.


This delicious ritual remains carefully etched in my mind because
it’s so rare today. My kids can eat fresh fruits and vegetables from
around the world on virtually any day of the year. They’ve already
tasted things that I didn’t even know existed when I was a kid –
kiwis from New Zealand, exotic star fruits and Jamaican plantain for
example.


On the surface, this seems like a good thing. Thanks to international
trade and modern storage technologies, we are no longer restricted by
local growing seasons and soil conditions. But in having so much,
we’ve actually lost sight of the process of growing food. Most of us
are about three generations away from having to go to the henhouse to
pick up the eggs on the family farm. And if our ancestors didn’t
actually grow their own food, they purchased it from a neighbor who
did.


Today instead of going out in the back garden and picking a tomato
for dinner, the tomato that ends up on your supper plate may have
traveled thousands of miles by truck. It’s then delivered to a
distribution center, shipped by yet another vehicle to your local
supermarket, and then given a ride home in the back of the family
van. This idea of being removed from our food source is something
called distancing.


Distancing not only adds to the cost of food, but it also places a
heavy toll on the environment. Trucking fresh produce across vast
distances burns a whole lot of fossil fuel – a major contributor to
both global warming and smog. Some of the countries that we import
produce from don’t have the same strict guidelines that we do about
pesticides. The result is that along with fruits and vegetables, in
some cases we’re also importing chemicals such as DDT that we banned
decades ago.


And then there’s the produce itself. Although it’s technically fresh,
it has to be picked long before it’s ripe in order to survive the
journey. Then it spends several days – or perhaps even weeks – before
it shows up on store shelves. Sure it looks great, but for those of
us who have experienced the taste of freshly picked fruit, it’s not
even in the same ballpark.


Which is perhaps why cherry is now my least favorite flavor. It’s so
far removed from the delicious cherries of my childhood, that I’d
rather not taste it.

Sadness on the Peace Train

The terrible events in New York City and Washington have left a legacy of personal tragedies. For Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston, the story of September 11th began as a journey of peace:

Transcript

The terrible events in New York City and Washington D.C. have left a legacy of personal tragedies. For Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator, Suzanne Elston, the story of September 11th, began as a journey of peace.


I’ve never been to New York City. So when we got an invitation to visit the Big Apple and participate in a children’s peace festival, we jumped at the chance. My husband Brian and two of our kids, Peter and Sarah, were going to be part of a church service marking the opening of the 56th session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Sarah was going to carry the Canadian flag and Peter was going to give a reading. The kids were wired and so were we.


Our plan was to leave Toronto Tuesday morning by train. The daylong trip would take us to New York City. We’d have all day Wednesday to do touristy things before the service on Thursday. We’d even managed to get tickets to a Broadway play. It all sounded so exciting that I couldn’t believe that it was actually going to happen.


We’d been on the train for about an hour when we first heard the news. Our traveling companions were 18 members of the Toronto Children’s Peace Theatre, also en route to the peace festival. The director of the company received a cell phone call that gave us sketchy details of the initial attack on the World Trade Center.


At first I refused to believe it. Here we were heading for an international children’s peace festival.


It felt like we were on the voyage of the damned. We continued on our journey, barreling down the tracks to a destination that we knew we would never reach. We heard rumors – the border was closed, there was shooting in the streets. People with cell phones were frantically trying to get a hold of somebody they knew who could give us an update.


The children from the theatre group were particularly upset. For most of them it was their first time away from home, and they were scared. As we discussed the latest details that we’d heard, one of the kids started to throw-up.


We moved to another car and tried to explain to a group of university students from England that they wouldn’t be flying home the next day from New York. As the news continued to filter in, we soon realized that they wouldn’t be flying home from anywhere. An elderly couple at the back of the car sat in stony silence. Their daughter worked at the World Trade Center and they were frozen in fear.


The conductor was stuck like a moose in headlights. Most of the passengers still didn’t know what was going on. My husband finally took him aside and explained that he had to make an announcement. People needed to make arrangements, to talk to their families. But he was just a kid and as scared as the rest of us. He wanted to wait until he had something official from Amtrak’s head office.


Finally, at 11:00 a.m., he made a formal announcement. The border was closed and we all would be disembarking at Niagara Falls. It was Tuesday evening by the time we got home and saw the horrific images of what had happened.


It wasn’t until then, when we were safe and home and together that we had a shocking revelation. The first stop on our sightseeing trip was going to be the World Trade Center. For the sake of a mere 24 hours we could have been buried at the bottom of that rubble like so many others.


Our great journey of peace ended with many prayers. We prayed for the victims and their families, we prayed for peace. Finally, we gave a prayer of thanks that we’d all made it home safely. After witnessing Tuesday’s horror – that was a gift beyond measure.

Return to Sender

The fast food and beverage industries spend billions of dollars annually to create an image for their products. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says that some of that money would be better spent educating the public about what to do with the leftovers:

Transcript

The fast food and beverage industries spend billions of dollars annually to create an image for their products. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says that some of that money would be better spent educating the public about what to do with the leftovers.


I was walking my dog the other day when she found a real treat right in the middle of the road. Some clown had pitched the remains of a Burger King dinner out their car window – fries, burger, napkins, and drink container – the works. And while Jessie couldn’t wait to roll around in the smashed French fries and burger bits, I was wishing I could find the rightful owner and return it.


Since I couldn’t hope to find the culprit, I decided to do the next best thing. I called the nearest Burger King restaurant and asked to speak to the manager. I told her that I had found something that belonged to her store, and asked if someone could please come and pick it up. She wondered exactly what it was, so I told her.


She said, “Just because our name’s on it, doesn’t mean that it’s our responsibility.”


I am quite sure that the employee who made that statement had no idea how profound it really was. From what I’ve seen, the vast majority of the garbage that makes its way into ditches along our roads is either fast food leftovers or beverage containers. The cheap, disposal nature of carryout packaging has made the entire fast food industry possible. The same can be said for the soft drink industry. They both benefit from the disposability of these items, and yet they appear to bear no responsibility for them.


More importantly, they don’t seem to care. And that’s what I find so interesting. The fast food and soft drink industries spend billions of dollars every year on advertising and promotion. They aren’t just selling products – they engage some of the brightest minds in advertising to help sell an image. What’s so astounding is that none of these marketing geniuses has made the connection between that carefully crafted image and what happens to it when it ends up squashed in a ditch or smeared all over the road. It strikes me that this is really bad public relations.


I understand that the very nature of fast food makes a certain amount of disposable packaging necessary. It’s also understood that it isn’t Burger King or McDonalds or Coca-Cola that’s pitching all this trash in the ditch. But the truth is that they aren’t doing much to discourage it, either. And maybe that’s the point.


The whole convenience food industry needs to work on educating the public about responsibly disposing of their packaging. Rather than packing food into bags at the drive-thru window or take-out counter, fast food restaurants should use litterbags instead. Maybe then consumers would actually think before they roll down the window and pitch.


Somewhere along the line both the fast food restaurants and the consumers have accepted the idea that a tremendous amount of garbage and littering is the price we have to pay for all that convenience. It’s time to re-visit that perception.


From here on, when I see a squashed coffee cup, a flattened Coke can or Big Mac wrapper in the street, I think I’ll be calling the advertised owners and asking them to come and pick up their stuff.

Bureaucracy’s Bright Side

The Supreme Court of Canada recently upheld the right of Canadian municipalities to restrict the use of pesticides within their boundaries. The decision marks the end of a 10 year lawsuit between the town of Hudson, Quebec and two companies – Chemlawn and Spraytech. The companies had sued the town, claiming municipalities did not have the power to control pesticide use. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says that Canada’s unique political structure has set a challenging precedent:

Transcript

The Supreme Court of Canada recently upheld the right of Canadian municipalities to restrict the use of pesticides within their boundaries. The decision marks the end of a 10-year lawsuit between the town of Hudson, Quebec and two companies – Chemlawn and Spraytech. The companies had sued the town, claiming municipalities did not have the power to control pesticide use. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says that Canada’s unique political structure has set a challenging precedent.


In Canada we have so many different levels of government each with its own area of responsibility. The problem is these areas frequently overlap, causing a bureaucratic nightmare. This particularly Canadian phenomenon has been dubbed jurisdictional gridlock.


Look at how we handle pesticides. They have to be registered federally in order to be manufactured and marketed. Provincial permission is required for companies to sell or apply them. And at the local level, municipalities can enact by-laws concerning their application.


In the U.S., by contrast, the handling, distribution and licensing of pesticides all falls under federal jurisdiction. So at least you only have to deal with one level of government, which should save time and effort.


But a recent victory by the town of Hudson, Quebec has demonstrated that sometimes a lot of red tape can actually be a good thing. The town’s battle to control the use of pesticides within its borders went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. The court not only upheld their right to protect local health and the environment, it also encouraged other municipalities to follow the Hudson example within the broad domain of Canadian and international law.


This wasn’t just a victory for community activists in Hudson. The Supreme Court decision gave all Canadian communities the power to take action on their own behalf. And believe me, they’re seizing that power. In the wake of the Hudson decision, towns and cities right across the country are in the process of enacting legislation that would severely restrict the use of pesticides within their borders.


This is a remarkable turn of events. And it clearly demonstrates the power that one small community can have. Jurisdictional gridlock may be a pain to wade through, but in light of what happened in Hudson, it can also be a really good thing.

Protesters Are Everyday People

It would appear that political protest is becoming a major part of international trade negotiations. In less than two years, thousands of protesters have been mobilized for trade talks in Quebec City, Seattle and Washington D.C. While much attention has been focused on the relatively small number of protesters who would be considered to be extreme in their views, Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says that the majority of the activists are ordinary people doing extraordinary things:

Transcript

It would appear that political protest is becoming a major part of international trade negotiations. In less than two years, thousands of protesters have been mobilized for trade talks in Quebec City, Seattle and Washington D.C. While much attention has been focused on the relatively small number of protesters who would be considered to be extreme in their views, Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says that the majority of the activists are ordinary people doing extraordinary things.


A couple of years ago I was shocked to discover that I had a file with the Canadian Intelligence agency. At first I thought it was funny. I mean I’m such a threat to national security. I think I’ve had one speeding ticket in 20 years, I’ve never been arrested and the most radical thing I thought I’d ever done was get a second hole pierced in one ear.


Apparently, my government thought differently. I’d been working with a local group trying to make public safety an issue at a nearby nuclear power plant. Our group consisted of a retired nurse, a couple of housewives, an autoworker, a schoolteacher and a biologist. Hardly the makings of a subversive group of terrorists, but we were being watched, nonetheless.


The problem wasn’t what we were doing; it was what we were asking the government to do. Our nuclear industry was still shrouded in the secrecy that had given birth to the nuclear weapons program a half a century earlier. We were dangerous because we wanted to change that.
We wanted them to create a transparent process around nuclear health and safety issues. Among other things, we wanted them to let the public know when there was a spill at the plant or when workers weren’t doing their jobs properly.


What’s ironic about all this is today the very ideas that had us labeled as radicals worth watching are now a regular part of public policy. We didn’t change our ideas, everybody else just caught up.


And now a whole new generation of activists is being watched because they want an open and honest process around free-trade issues. Like us, the majority of them are law- abiding, tax-paying citizens who simply want their voices heard. They want to make sure in the move toward globalization things like environmental protection and human rights aren’t ignored. They’re protesting out of frustration because they’re being shut out of the process.


Look at the people that I know who went to Quebec City. One colleague is a university professor and yet another is a respected author who works on cancer prevention. But perhaps the best example is my friend Denise. She’s the mother of four boys and has been teaching at a religious high school for 20 years. In her spare time she sings in her church choir and leads a youth group. Denise was tear-gassed as she sat in a prayer circle with a bunch of other women for no apparent reason. Talk to anyone who was in Seattle or Quebec or Washington and you’ll hear similar stories.


These are not radical terrorists who are threatening to dismantle society as we know it, but that’s exactly how they’re treated whenever they gather to try and influence the process – and with good reason. They pose a much more serious threat to the status quo than any bomb wielding terrorist. And that’s because they are right and righteousness is a terrifying thing.


Social activists are frequently persecuted by the very system that they seek to improve. Look at the civil rights movement. People were harassed, beaten, jailed and even killed. Why? Because they upheld an ideal of social justice that transcended the status quo.


This same process has happened over and over again throughout history. The anti-war protests during the 60s, Tianammen Square a decade ago. Every time people had a vision that frightened the powers of the day.


And so now this latest generation of social revolutionaries is trying to slow the push toward globalization. They’re concerned that the environment, local cultures and developing nations will suffer. But rather than being applauded for their courage and vision, they are being stalked by government agencies like common criminals. Sound familiar?


The good news is that in time, like so many times before, their ideas will gain momentum until they reach a critical mass. Eventually the powers that be will get it, and the system will change, and we will wonder (or even forget) what all the fuss was about.

High Time for High Gas Prices

Vice President Dick Cheney recently spoke to the Toronto
Press Club about U.S. energy needs. Cheney said that the U.S.
would buy all the energy that Canada could supply. Immediately
following the announcement, Canadian gas prices jumped to over
two U.S. dollars a gallon. Some experts say that by the summer it
could go as high as $2.50. Great Lakes Radio Consortium
commentator Suzanne Elston says that high prices aren’t
necessarily a bad thing: