Property

Numerous organizations representing the interests of local growth and property ownership sought provincial action against acid rain in the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, including the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce and the Federation of Ontario Cottagers’ Associations (FOCA). Yet the most influential were the CCAR and Toronto’s print media, which together pressured the Ontario government for acid rain relief through the regulation of Inco, Ontario Hydro, and the other metal-processing facilities.^{Footnote 24} The CCAR was an umbrella organization interested in addressing acid rain through public campaigning and private negotiations with governments and polluters. It grew from twenty-five members at the time of its March 1981 launch to fifty-six member groups, representing a membership in excess of two million Canadians at the time of its dissolution in 1991.^{Footnote 25} Reflecting on its importance, Globe and Mail (Globe) acid rain reporter Michael Keating says that “the most sustained and effective criticism of government and business came from the Canadian Coalition on Acid Rain, which maintained constant pressure for acid gas reductions by constantly pressing the media to cover various aspects of the story.”^{Footnote 26}

At the CCAR’s core was a belief that an organization representing a broad spectrum of Canadian interests would succeed in securing not only acid rain precursor reductions in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada, but also in persuading American legislators to cut emissions from coal-fired power plants in the Ohio River Valley. As such, efforts were made to include groups from all areas concerned and affected by acid rain. Support from the Canadian environmental community was fundamental to the group’s launch, while its key employees, Adèle Hurley and Michael Perley, had previously worked for the Toronto-based ENGOs Pollution Probe and the Canadian Environmental Law Association.^{Footnote 27} While it is predictable that strong support would come from the environmentally conscious—acid rain was, after all, a pollution problem—less predictable, but no less vital support came from propertied interests. Of the CCAR’s fifty-six member groups, fourteen fall into this category. These groups include representatives from the agricultural (Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Ontario Federation of Agriculture), tourism (Accommodation Motel Ontario Association, Northern Ontario Tourist Outfitters Association, Resorts Ontario), and forestry (New Brunswick Federation of Woodlot Owners, Ontario Forestry Association) sectors.

Most illustrative of property’s role within the CCAR is the contribution provided by Ontario-based cottage associations. Fueled by wealthy Torontonians’ desire to spend their recreational time outside the city, cottage communities took root in the Kawarthas, Muskoka, and Georgian Bay during the second half of the nineteenth century. As historian Peter A. Stevens has demonstrated, “the newfound automobility of the 1920s” resulted in the mass popularization of Ontario’s cottage country, which had since expanded into northern areas of the province, including the Lake Temagami and Lake of the Woods areas.^{Footnote 28} Cottage owners’ associations quickly followed to protect the interests of the summertime residents. With acid rain forecast to destroy the lakes and woodlands that made cottage country an ideal respite from the city, concern naturally arose regarding the status of their investment. This explains why the FOCA, an umbrella organization representing the interests of the province’s cottage owners, was among the CCAR’s founding members. In time, individual cottage associations, namely, the Muskoka Lakes Association (MLA), the Temagami Lakes Association, and the Lake of Bays Association, would take up membership in the CCAR.

The MLA would prove particularly important in the fight against acid rain. Membership of the MLA included more than ten thousand cottage owners and many prominent Canadians, notably business magnates Ted Rogers Jr., Doug Bassett, Dixon Chant (director, Argus Corporation), Frank H. Sherman (chairman and CEO, Dofasco), Trevor Moore (vice president, Imperial Oil), Warren Moysey (CIBC), Donald Gilpin “Bud” Willmot (chairman, Molson Industries, Ltd., and owner, Kinghaven Farms), and John Craig Eaton and Frederik Stefan Eaton, heirs to the Eaton’s department store empire, as well as prominent political figures David Lewis and John Black Aird.^{Footnote 29} Furthermore, as is noted below, the region was the summer home to powerful Americans. Given the influence of these figures, the MLA was seen as a potentially valuable ally by the CCAR. On May 13, 1981, Michael Perley addressed the MLA in an effort to bring the organization onside. As the opening of his speech indicates, the significance of property ownership was a prime motivator: “The lasting impressions and happy memories that thousands hold for the Muskoka Lakes area, myself included, are the outcome of years of hard work by you. You’ve made the investments. You have taken the [financial] risks. You have brought tourism to the area. You have been accommodating hosts to the hundreds of thousands of Americans and fellow Canadians who return to Muskoka year after year.”^{Footnote 30} This appeal evidently worked as the MLA proceeded to join the CCAR. Jeffrey Shearer, president of the MLA, would likewise assume the presidency of the CCAR. During 1984, the MLA held fund-raisers for the anti–acid rain lobby and, on one occasion in response to solicitations for contributions it distributed, raised $125,000. The MLA would also provide the initial funds necessary to hold the June 7, 1985, dinner featuring Senator Ted Kennedy, which raised $85,000 for the CCAR.^{Footnote 31}

The MLA would spin off two influential organizations: the American Friends of Muskoka (AFM) and the Movement Against Acid Rain (MAAR). The AFM was formed during the summer of 1984 with the explicit purpose of rallying American property owners against acid rain. Consisting of seventy-five families from fourteen states, it featured a heavy concentration from Pennsylvania—a particularly relevant development given the fact that the majority of acid precipitation landing in Muskoka emanated from the Ohio River Valley. The founding meeting featured such distinguished part-time residents as J. Irwin Miller, the former president and chairman of the Cummins Corporation, who had also served as national campaign chair of Nelson A. Rockefeller’s 1968 presidential bid; Olive Phelps, widow of William W. Phelps Jr., the former senior vice president of Mellon Bank; John F. Walton III, the namesake grandson of Pittsburgh’s “coal king”; and Henry Hillman, the venture capitalist and industrialist who held the distinction of being the wealthiest man in Pittsburgh. Guest speakers at the event were Senator Robert Stafford, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and David Wooley, assistant attorney general, Environmental Protection Bureau, State of New York. The group’s second annual meeting, hosted by Hillman on August 18, 1985, featured the Honorable Drew Lewis, special envoy to the president on acid rain, as the guest speaker. Predominately characterized as a group of Republicans from the Midwest, the AFM used its influence to lobby its impressive list of contacts in the United States, as seen in Elsie (Mrs. Henry) Hillman’s June 12, 1987, letter to Senator John Heinz. Explaining that “when I leave the United States and go to Beaumaris, I tend to become Canadian!” The member of the Republican National Committee further explained that “I hope that you will take the problem seriously and if you cannot suuport [sic] the Mitchell/Stafford bills [acid rain legislation proposed by two U.S. senators], do something yourself to start to alleviate this problem. We have been fooling around with this for too long!”^{Footnote 32}

The MAAR was formed by cottagers in Muskoka and Haliburton (including members of the MLA) with the explicit goal of raising money for the CCAR and the secondary objective of raising general awareness of the problem. Beginning in February 1983, it used resources (such as contact lists shared by other organizations and a Bay Street investment house as a call center) to engage in targeted mailings and telephone campaigns to solicit $25 membership pledges and sell $100 or more per-plate dinner reservations.^{Footnote 33} One of these large dinners featured Canada’s ambassador to the United States, Allan Gotlieb. The event, held in Toronto on May 9, 1983, raised $54,000 to aid the CCAR. An additional $12,000 was raised that summer through the sale of special tee shirts and a dinner held at the Beaumaris Club on Lake Muskoka.^{Footnote 34}

In addition to the importance of the CCAR and related organizations (and as with Toronto’s urban air pollution in the 1950s), the region’s two metropolitan newspapers, the Globe and the Toronto Star (Star), were active voices in support of pollution abatement. Chief acid rain reporter at the Star, Ross Howard, was particularly aware of the close link between the print media and cottage country. Munton reports that “as Howard well understood, many of the upper management of the Toronto Star had summer cottages in endangered areas. The Muskoka lakes had friends in high places, and not just at the Star. . . . A social network involving influential members of Ontario society came into gear, working in tandem with the network involving the government and the media.”^{Footnote 35} About the media response, Michael Keating, the chief acid rain reporter at the Globe recalls: “The slant of the stories was that acid rain was a threat, and that governments and industry had an obligation to reduce that threat to tolerable levels. Fairly early on in the coverage the target of a fifty percent reduction in emissions was recommended by federal environment officials, and this became the goal which the media used to judge political actions.”^{Footnote 36} Both the Star and the Globe ran numerous front-page articles and lengthy features on the topic of acid rain, the latter taking the characteristic of “human interest” stories about the experiences of people coping with the loss of aquatic wildlife and speculating about what it means for the future of the Muskoka region. For example, on October 7 and 8, 1980, the Star printed a lengthy two-article feature called “Acid Rain: Will our lakes survive?” authored by Howard and eventual CCAR co-founder Michael Perley.^{Footnote 37} Similarly, a full-page article written by Keating and published on July 27, 1981, was titled “Rain of Death” and accompanied with banners reading “Lake once a haven, ‘now everything is going’”; “Cottagers fear a legacy of death”; and “Produced by air pollution, acid rain destroys life.”^{Footnote 38} These articles, like others produced over a nearly ten-year period by both major Toronto newspapers, contained a mixture of vivid and emotional storytelling, accented with up-to-date information about the science and politics of the problem. Overall, Keating has reported counting more than 3,500 articles and letters on acid rain printed in the Globe alone from late 1977 to the middle of 1993.^{Footnote 39}

The Globe and Star also allowed their pages to be a forum for experts to communicate with the public over the issue. Their op-ed pages commonly carried pieces by scientists and politicians about the problems of acid rain, as did the letters to the editor. Keating recalls: “Letters to the editor played a very important role in the acid rain coverage. They were a forum for politicians, business people, academics, scientists, environmentalists and citizens to contribute directly to the debate. Some people were repeat commentators in The Globe, including Paul Aird, professor of forestry at University of Toronto, Charles Caccia, a former federal environment minister, officials of Ontario Hydro and leaders of the Canadian Coalition on Acid Rain.”^{Footnote 40} The two newspapers also published articles on the health effects of airborne contaminants. In a September 20, 1985, front-page article, the Globe presented the findings of a study indicating that Ontario children living in areas experiencing a high quantity of acids had decreased lung capacity and higher instances of a range of pulmonary morbidities.^{Footnote 41}

Similarly, the editorial pages of both the Star and Globe were vocal advocates for acid-rain abatement policy. Recalling how the Globe came to adopt a firm editorial stance on acid rain, Keating says: “In the late 1970s the editor, Dick Doyle, decided that acid rain was a serious threat, and the paper should support strong controls. Editorials, backed by editorial cartoons, were often sharply critical of Canadian and U.S. governments for not moving faster to implement such controls. This editorial policy supported the strong calls for acid rain controls coming from environmentalists and from the Canadian government.”^{Footnote 42}

Part of the reason for the CCAR’s and print media’s effectiveness rested in their staff’s close working relationships with each other’s organizations. Keating recalls that “groups such as the Canadian Coalition on Acid Rain, would often trigger a story by suggesting questions that should be asked of a politician or business person. The story would reflect the questioning of that person, and might or might not refer to the Coalition.”^{Footnote 43} Referring to a Globe article from February 10, 1983, titled “Canada should stop waiting for an acid rain control agreement with the United States and make its own pollution cutbacks now, U.S. Senator Robert Stafford says,” Keating illustrates this relationship: “This is a typical story in which an important news source cannot be ignored. It was also a story arranged by the Canadian Coalition on Acid Rain, which had invited Stafford to Toronto to speak and especially to meet the news media and get coverage.”^{Footnote 44} Moreover, Keating added that “journalists would often call the Canadian Coalition on Acid Rain for reaction to statements by government or industry officials. If the reporter did not call the Coalition, its representatives would often call the media directly.”^{Footnote 45} He further commented that the relationship benefitted from the complementary competencies of the CCAR and the media, namely, that the CCAR was in possession of the scientific understanding of the issue and the media were necessary for the CCAR’s objective of arousing public opinion:

This relationship also existed with the writers of the Star, in particular Ross Howard. To give one example, after the initial round of Ontario regulations on Inco (in 1980) and Ontario Hydro (in 1981) occurred, and the federal government brought U.S. media representatives and politicians to the acid-damaged areas for a tour, it became apparent that Ontario’s stalled efforts were damaging diplomatic relations with the Americans. Howard responded by writing articles underscoring Ontario’s inadequate abatement efforts featuring extensive quoting from Perley and Hurley.^{Footnote 47} One such article, which spotlighted a January 1982 amendment to the 1981 Ontario Hydro regulation allowing the utility to produce more nitrogen oxide as sulfur dioxide was reduced, contained the following quote from Hurley: “The cabinet’s fiddling with the limits on Hydro emissions won’t fool anyone in the U.S. Legislators there want a blunt answer on whether Ontario has strict controls on its major polluters. The answer here is no.”^{Footnote 48}

Thus the propertied interests seeking to address Ontario’s acid rain problem were a diverse group with overlapping objectives and representing many locally oriented economic elites. Since much of the pollution contributing to the problem originated in the Ohio River Valley, they also sought to influence American pollution policy—with little success in the end.^{Footnote 49} Yet as we show below, they were of central importance throughout the policy process to address Ontario’s acid rain emissions.

Heavy Industry

The industrial actors in the acid rain story of the late 1970s to mid-1980s represent a different sort than those known to be polluting Toronto’s air during the 1950s. Urban air pollution in Ontario’s largest city had already been substantially reduced, with manufacturers and manufacturing support industries regulated under the 1958 air pollution legislation and automobile emissions regulated provincially a decade later. Left to be regulated were the large coal-fired power plants and smelters located in relatively remote locations. Rather than turning to trade associations for representation as others had, these firms were politically powerful enough by themselves to engage in direct negotiations with provincial regulators.

Ontario Hydro was, at the time, the province’s monopoly electricity utility and a crown corporation that tended to seek as much autonomy as possible in its business dealings. In Douglas Macdonald’s analysis of its role in Ontario’s acid rain program, he asserts that Ontario Hydro sought first and foremost to be a unique entity; second, as a business firm maximizing return on investment; third, lowest on its priorities, as a public agency that would cooperate with the Ontario government on its policy objectives.^{Footnote 50} Given that, under normal circumstances (that is, not during a politically salient effort at regulation), these plants fell under Ontario’s point of impingement regulatory instrument, Ontario Hydro had never experienced intrusive regulation to the extent that the provincial government would specify the types of abatement technology that must be used in its power plants.^{Footnote 51} None of its power plants, including its largest polluters—Lakeview, Lambton, and Nanticoke—had been required to switch to low-sulfur coal or install scrubbers to lessen sulfur dioxide emissions.^{Footnote 52}

The remaining major emitters—Inco, Falconbridge, and Algoma Steel—were privately owned metal producers selling their products on the global market. All large employers important for the economies of the towns of Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, they had considerable influence in the provincial government and had been able to avoid heavy regulation imposing high capital investment costs. Falconbridge had already undertaken emissions reductions during the early 1970s, and along with Algoma Steel emitted substantially less sulfur dioxide than Inco.^{Footnote 53} During the early 1980s, due to low nickel prices, Inco had lost money on an annual basis, thus providing rhetorical backing for its argument that it could not afford the necessary measures to lower emissions.^{Footnote 54} The fact that the federal government was willing to finance the modernization of these plants is indicative of their considerable bargaining power. Thus, the efforts of Ontario’s propertied interests to address the problem of acid rain took place in the context of concentrated, powerful, and, at the time, occasionally nonprofitable heavy industry trying to maximize its return on investment and with little economic incentive to take measures to improve the regional environment for which the market for its products did not depend.

Agenda Setting and the First Round of Reductions

The political dimension of the acid rain issue in Ontario initiated with the decision by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE) to rescind a control order on Inco at the end of July 1978. The provincial health-based control order on Inco issued in 1970 was aimed at addressing Sudbury’s local air pollution rather than acid rain and would have reduced sulfur dioxide emissions from 3,600 tons a day to 750. But rather than lessening emissions, Inco opted to build a tall “Superstack”—at 1,200 feet, the tallest chimney in the world—to transport much of its emissions elsewhere. Since the Inco Superstack had improved the ambient conditions in Sudbury substantially, and Inco could challenge the control order on that basis, the provincial government decided not to pursue the reductions Inco had been required to meet by December 1978.^{Footnote 55}

The decision to lift Inco’s control order was met with considerable resistance.^{Footnote 56} Days later, the Star’s editorial board voiced its opposition forcefully in an August 1, 1978, piece on the basis that the smelter contributed to the acid rain problem outside of Sudbury:

Munton, Keating, and Fenech explain the issue’s importance and its link with the province’s tourism industry:

Similarly, Tom Brydges, a senior scientist in the MOE who was active in acid rain policy throughout the late 1970s and 1980s attests, “I believe that the perceived threat to the real estate value of cottage property and to the viability of the recreational industries, generated most of the substantial and immediate public reaction.”^{Footnote 59} Indeed, when the control order was lifted on Inco in 1978, Ontario cottagers’ and anglers’ associations were among the interests publicly opposed.^{Footnote 60} Reflecting on their political significance at this stage, Munton observes that “the cottagers were not the sort of environmental radicals who would have been turned away at cabinet ministers’ doors; they generally held middle of the road or conservative political values, and were more like born-again conservationists than new age environmentalists.”^{Footnote 61} Members of the opposition parties and two conservation groups called on Ontario environmental minister George McCague to resign, while the FOCA sought full disclosure of the MOE’s meetings with the firm. Early the following year, as the costs of the acid rain problem became clearer, the executive director of the 300,000-member FOCA publicly stated the following: “We’ve been told about water pollution; we’ve been told don’t eat fish because of mercury poisoning, and now we’re being told our lakes don’t have a hope in hell. Our property values, our lifestyle, an entire economy is being eroded. Put a plug on acid rain!”^{Footnote 62} Within three weeks of rescinding the control order, in August 1978, McCague was replaced after only seven months as minister of the environment. That fall, when the Ontario Legislature reconvened, acid rain had priority on the agenda.^{Footnote 63}

The government response to acid rain leading to the first round of emissions cuts began in February 1979, when the provincial legislature’s sixteen-member standing committee on resource development conducted hearings on the issue, in which the new minister of the environment, Inco representatives, and many experts testified. Among the points raised in the testimony were that at least forty-eight thousand more lakes, including those in the Muskoka region, were threatened and that half would be dead within a decade, and that the dead lakes would adversely affect the tourism industry and broader economy.^{Footnote 64} Several months later, in October 1979, the Bilateral Research Consultation Group on the Long-Range Transport of Air Pollutants (BRCG), a fact-finding committee formed by the U.S. and Canadian governments to look into the acid rain issue, released its interim report.^{Footnote 65} While more focused on the sources and flows of transboundry acid rain, the report underscored the damage acid rain can do to the soil used by crops and forests, as well as the damage it can cause to the built environment.^{Footnote 66}

At this point, newly appointed provincial environmental minister Harry Parrott insisted that no abatement measures would be taken until the United States reached a firm agreement for bilateral reductions, arguing that a cleanup would be too costly for industry. The Globe’s editorial board responded on October 17, 1979, by criticizing Parrott and underscoring the economic basis for action, saying: “If Dr. Parrott’s Government is so concerned with the preservation of jobs, it should take serious stock of the jobs connected with farming, with forestry, with fishing; short fishing in central Canadian lakes alone accounts, with its tourist spin-offs, for $600-million annually.”^{Footnote 67} In December, two months after the interim report by the BRCG and as the potential consequences for Ontario’s economy became clearer, the Star’s editorial board sought to clarify what was at stake by linking the problem in Muskoka to Toronto:

In May 1980, responding to the efforts of the newspapers, the FOCA, and other organizations to arouse public concern and influence the provincial government, and despite substantial resistance from Inco, the MOE released a draft control order requiring the smelter to reduce its sulfur dioxide emissions from then-present levels by 25 percent.^{Footnote 69} Furthermore, the MOE announced the creation of a federal-provincial task force to examine the feasibility of further emissions controls (thus, arguably, lessening the MOE’s reliance on data provided to it by Inco.)

In the wake of Inco’s acquiescence, Ontario Hydro (the province’s public utility and second-largest polluter) also committed to reductions. In 1980, federal studies indicated that the utility could cut its annual emissions of nearly half a million tons of sulfur dioxide in half using existing technology, and that the increase in costs would only result in a 10 percent increase in utility rates.^{Footnote 70} In January 1981, Ontario Hydro was ordered to reduce emissions by 42 percent over the following nine years.^{Footnote 71} With an initial estimated cost of $500 million, the plan was to require the utility’s highest-polluting plants to install scrubbers, including Nanticoke, Hydro’s largest coal-fired plant.^{Footnote 72}

Abatement Technology and Policy Formulation

Following the regulatory actions of 1980 on Inco and early 1981 on Ontario Hydro, little else new happened to govern air pollution in Ontario for two years. This changed in December 1982, when the federal-provincial task force set up to investigate Inco’s capacity to lessen emissions reported that the majority of Inco’s sulfur dioxide emissions could be eliminated at a cost of around $500 million (roughly the same amount that Ontario Hydro was considering spending to lower its emissions) with the construction of a roast reduction smelter (RRS).^{Footnote 73} This available technology and dollar amount served as a basis for negotiations conducted between Inco and the Ontario MOE during the summer of 1983. During these meetings, Inco privately acknowledged that the technology necessary for a 75 percent reduction in sulfur emissions now was available, but the company refused to make the investment until it could be integrated into a strategy for regaining profitability.^{Footnote 74}

Despite continued opposition by Inco and others (most notably, Algoma Steel and Falconbridge), the political momentum for a second round of sulfur dioxide reductions picked up during 1983 and into early 1984, when the federal and provincial environment ministers discussed the possibilities for additional emissions cuts. Beginning in the fall of 1983, a succession of two interprovincial agreements commenced and, by the following March, seven provinces (Ontario, Québec, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland) and the federal government agreed to sulfur dioxide reductions of 50 percent from 1980 levels.^{Footnote 75} While the specifics of which sources would be regulated and to what extent had yet to be determined, the ministers based their agreement on the understanding that the provinces would take the lead in controlling pollution from coal-fired power plants, and that the federal government would assist in addressing smelter pollution by funding pollution-decreasing modifications. In particular, Ontario’s Falconbridge and Inco smelters were among the six smelters that would be expected to reduce pollution substantially through federally funded modernizations.^{Footnote 76}

The emergent consensus (among policymakers within and outside government) about the need for a federally funded smelter-modernization process is the most significant policy breakthrough during this period because it represents the development of a strategy for reducing emissions substantially beyond what these firms had previously been willing to commit to achieving.^{Footnote 77} Recognizing that technology to bring about the sought-after reductions existed, the CCAR released a report, written by a member of the federal-provincial task force, on December 20, 1983, recommending a federally funded modernization program involving the construction of the RRS and other measures, totaling $525 million.^{Footnote 78} The report claimed that new technology would improve the firm’s profitability and that the reductions resulting from the implementation of technology could bring Inco within the limits of the 1970 control order.

At this point the provincial and federal governments were unwilling to commit publicly to this course of action, and instead suggested that it was premature since they were waiting for a report due the following year on the Canadian base metals and smelting industries before further developing policy.^{Footnote 79} The Star, however, made its preference for this policy alternative known in a January 15, 1984, editorial:

Afterward, on February 10, 1984, CCAR representatives met with Inco officials to convince them to request federal assistance for smelter-modernization technology.^{Footnote 81} The CCAR plan was for Inco to release a statement indicating that it would proceed with modernizations with adequate federal assistance. However, Inco indicated at the time that it was not ready to proceed since, as before, CCAR’s plan had yet to be integrated into the firm’s strategy for returning to profitability.^{Footnote 82}

After the Canadian provinces decided to move forward with unilateral reductions (i.e., irrespective of U.S. actions) in March 1984, the Star praised the move and made recommendations on how to proceed, including the use of control orders and financing for modernization. In this March 10, 1984, editorial, the Star stated:

Similarly, in April 1984, the CCAR released proposed regulations with a smelter-modernization program costing Inco $500 million with phased reductions in sulfur dioxide to roughly the levels of the 1970 control order by 1992.^{Footnote 84}

Ontario’s propertied interests therefore participated not only in the early agenda-setting phases of the policy process to address acid rain, but also during the policy formulation phase. The catalytic change enabling the formulation of a policy response occurred when the availability of affordable technology for smelter modernization was established. At this point it became feasible to seek reductions in emissions without severely damaging the province’s industrial base. The next challenge was to convince the polluters to embrace an “ecological modernization” solution.

Applying Pressure and the Second Round of Reductions

With a developing consensus on how to address the province’s (and eastern Canada’s) contribution to the acid rain problem, the CCAR used a variety of tactics to bring about the second round of reductions. In addition to the CCAR’s strategic use of the print media to create stories and express its views, the CCAR attempted to mobilize the public with publicity campaigns aimed at raising the political salience of the issue.^{Footnote 85} In early 1982, it used radio advertisements featuring popular entertainers and billboards with the words “Who Will Stop the Rain?” which were placed in both Canada and the United States.^{Footnote 86} These efforts helped to place the issue in the broader public consciousness and, in the following provincial election, acid rain was for the first time a prominent election issue.

The CCAR also commissioned polls in order to underscore the extent of Canadian popular support for acid rain controls and government funding for smelter modernization. In 1982, a Gallup poll commissioned by the CCAR indicated that three out of four Canadians thought that the federal and provincial governments had done little or nothing to address acid rain.^{Footnote 87} A March 1984 CCAR-commissioned Gallup poll found that 65 percent of Ontario residents supported government funding to limit emissions from Inco’s Sudbury smelter.^{Footnote 88} It also found that nearly half of Canadians indicated that the government should pay for more than half of the expense, and that most Canadians would be willing to pay $5 to $15 per month to address the problem.^{Footnote 89} Attending the meeting in Bracebridge, Ontario, at which the CCAR presented the poll results, was federal environment minister Charles Caccia, who commented that the costs of modernizing Canada’s smelters must be weighed in relation to the greater than $20 billion tourism, fishing, and forestry industries damaged by acid rain.^{Footnote 90} The poll findings were also reported on the editorial page of the Globe on May 11, 1984, which used the opportunity to underscore public support for costly abatement measures:

Evidence suggests that these opinion polls were effective in convincing politicians that Canadians would be willing to shoulder the costs of a cleanup, as Ontario environment minister Andrew Brandt commented that they vindicated his position that public funds would have to be spent on nuclear energy development and smelter modernization.^{Footnote 92} Furthermore, when the federally funded smelter modernization program was informally announced in February 1985, the federal environment minister Suzanne Blais-Grenier mentioned the findings of the polls as a rationale for the policy.^{Footnote 93}

During 1984, Inco worked on formulating a strategy to use the modernization imperative as an opportunity to enhance the efficiency of existing facilities and lower its costs. By the fall of that year, Inco had agreed privately to provincial negotiators that it would reduce its emissions to 350,000 metric tons per year (thus averaging roughly 1,050 standard tons per day).^{Footnote 94} This represented Ontario’s main contribution to the national program—the Eastern Canada Acid Rain Program (ECARP)—formally announced in March 1985 by the federal government. In it, the provinces signed an accord to reduce their emissions from 1980 levels of 4.6 million metric tons of sulfur dioxide per year to 2.3 million metric tons by 1994, and the federal government agreed to help finance the necessary smelter modernizations.^{Footnote 95} The exact amount that Inco would be required to reduce sulfur emissions was initially unclear, but Algoma and Falconbridge would not have lowered caps.^{Footnote 96} Ontario Hydro’s sulfur caps stayed put at 175,000 metric tons. Inco then announced, in April 1985, that it would meet the reductions agreed to months earlier (350,000 metric tons per year) and, surprisingly, stated that it would not use federal funding since it was able to make the reductions for less cost than expected and did not want to meet the conditions of the funding.^{Footnote 97} This program was expected to bring Inco to about 70 percent below 1980 levels, albeit less of a reduction than had been discussed with negotiators during the summer of 1983. At the time of its announcement, Michael Keating of the Globe, as well as the CCAR, observed that the plan did not actually account for how 14 percent of the 2.3 million metric tons would be reduced.^{Footnote 98} Further negotiations with Inco continued throughout the year.^{Footnote 99} Six months following the announcement of the federal ECARP (and three months before Ontario’s Countdown Acid Rain was announced), on September 7, 1985, the editorial page of the Star kept pressure on Ottawa and the provinces to deliver on their commitments, and in particular for an examination of whether Inco had committed to sufficient reductions:

By the end of the year, the 300,000-metric-ton shortage had been accounted for. Countdown Acid Rain, Ontario’s acid rain control plan, was announced in December 1985.^{Footnote 101} It was created with the passage of four regulations under the province’s Environmental Protection Act. Ontario Hydro’s cap was lowered from 260,000 metric tons per year (as specified in the 1981 regulation) to 175,000 metric tons by 1994, which it would accomplish by transitioning to nuclear power over coal. Algoma Steel and the Falconbridge smelter—the province’s third and fourth largest sulfur emitters, respectively, which had both managed to avoid new regulations to that point—were required to reduce their emissions by roughly two-thirds. Inco’s mandated reductions, substantially more than the firm had previously agreed to, capped its emissions at a rough equivalent to the level of the 1970 control order.^{Footnote 102}

In the end, the policy effort was a substantial success. At the time of its announcement, it arguably represented the most aggressive and costly acid rain abatement effort undertaken in North America. Upon its announcement, Adèle Hurley of the CCAR said, “It’s just a great day for the environment in this country—it’s a great, green Christmas present.”^{Footnote 103} The CCAR’s Michael Perley said “All in all, it sounds like a pretty good program. It’s a major change from what we had before.”^{Footnote 104} By the end of 1994, sulfur dioxide emissions in eastern Canada stood at 1.8 million metric tons per year, 0.5 million metric tons below the objective of 2.3 million.^{Footnote 105}