This week:

• We continue our focus on the October 10th Ontario Elections with part two of The Environment Bosses, Ontario’s first cross-section of environment critics and Ministers from the various provincial parties. In this second episode, Jordan Poppenk interviews Ontario Environment Minister Laurel Broten, Liberal MPP and the woman who has had the final word over key environmental decisions in Ontario over the past four years. Also on the program is Green Party of Ontario leader Frank de Jong, who speaks about the Green aspirations and environmental philosophy. PC Environment Critic Laurie Scott declined to participate in this series.

The headlines in brief:

• A University of British Columbia study claims pollution is killing 25,000 Canadians a year and is costing the health care system more than $9 billion;
• Alberta has rolled out a policy to curb toxic emissions and limit water use in an area northeast of Edmonton where at least eight large oil upgraders are planned;
• Northern aboriginal leaders are demanding answers from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government about cuts at Environment Canada;
• B.C. premier Gordon Campbell promised legislation to reduce B.C.’s greenhouse-gas emissions 33 per cent below current levels by 2020
• Geography researchers at Queen’s University observed large-scale landslides transform a Acrtic permafrost valley in a matter of hours;
• Canada’s top business leaders have endorsed a document that acknowledges global climate change is a reality and calls for potentially painful government intervention;
• Recently revised figures from Envionment Canada indicate Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions remained constant from 2004 to 2005 at 747 million tonnes, likely as a result of the warm winter;
• The World Conservation Union said that the polar bear was likely to be assigned ‘endangered’ status in the near future;
• The Phillippines has tightened laws that protect the country’s largest coral reef;
• This year’s arctic sea ice pack was the smallest since satellite assessments began in the 1970s.

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