TORONTO - Ontario's environment commissioner says the Liberal government does lots of talking about climate change and waste diversion but doesn't seem to be doing much.
Commissioner Gord Miller says the Environment Ministry has written four reports on ways to increase waste diversion, but has done little on what he feels should be a top environmental priority.
In his annual report, Miller says the Ministry of Natural Resources' efforts to protect species at risk are what he calls "an empty bureaucratic exercise" that does little to help endangered animals.
The report also takes the province and federal government to task for allowing negotiations to clean up the Great Lakes drag on to the point where they "threaten to paralyze" any more progress.
Miller also says it's no accident that the Ontario government is doing so little on the environment, calling it the goal of those who oppose environmental protections.
He says the government responds to critics who claim there is no problem, and orders more research to debate and explain the same issue all over again.
"We don't see ourselves as having a culture of inaction and procrastination," wrote Miller.
"Yet that would be a fair criticism from any impartial observer."
