For those following the fascinating public/ private culture clash that is the Blue Box funding arbitration under the Waste Diversion Act, here is the Amended Municipal Claim. You will see that paragraphs 70 and 71 have been amended, to plead that the Cost Containment Plan was never a legally enforceable amendment to the Blue Box Program Plan. Instead, the municipalities say, it was merely a policy document, a strategy, with no more legal effect than the Minister's calls for a particular level of waste diversion.
Meanwhile, the Blue Box arbitration hearing has begun. Opening statements have been made on behalf of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (by Dianne Saxe) and on behalf of the City of Toronto (by Glenn Chu). In between bouts of procedural wrangling, the first witness has testified for the municipalities. Derek Stephenson was one of the original inventors of the Blue Box, here in Ontario, and has since helped to develop similar waste diversion programs in more than 40 countries. He was Stewardship Ontario's primary negotiator for many years.
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