ONTARIO'S RADICAL NEW ENVIRONMENT COMMISSIONER

Ontario’s new environment commissioner wants an end to cheap diesel for farmers and a rethink of sprawl-minded transportation and land-use policies, and that’s just for starters. 

“We don’t have a true level playing field in transportation, in agriculture, we don’t have it in land development. We have a regulatory system that got us what we’ve got,” says Dianne Saxe, who’s been the province’s environment commissioner for a month. She comes to the job after a 40-year career as an environmental lawyer, the consensus choice of all three parties at Queen’s Park.

The new commissioner was drawn to environmental law by “a mad passion for trees and a love for any place you could put a paddle,” she half-jokes.