When Brian Pallister was sworn into government and announced his new team of 12 ministers, along with their portfolios, there was at least one glaring omission according to a conservation watchdog — there's no longer a conservation and water stewardship minister.

"To go about running a province — a province that has such an incredible amount of functioning nature, and such important things like huge lakes and massive forests that are globally important — to not have that front and centre when you're setting up how the government is going to be running the province for the next four years is really regressive," said Eric Reder, Manitoba campaign director for the Wilderness Committee.

Pallister appointed Cathy Cox as minister of sustainable development. Former Interlake MLA Tom Nevakshonoff was in charge of the conservation portfolio under the NDP government, which was ousted by the PCs April 19 after nearly 17 years in government.

It's easy to imagine the terms "sustainable" and "conservation" as having something in common, but language matters hugely in this case and should raise flags for people who care about the environment, Reder said.

"Sustainable development is a far cry from the conservation department," he said.

"Does Lake Winnipeg need development? No, Lake Winnipeg needs conservation. Do woodland caribou need development? No, they need conservation. Our fisheries that we're concerned about the pickerel populations in the last couple weeks, does that need development? No, that needs conservation."

The word "sustainable" has a friendly-sounding, eco-conscious ring to it traditionally, but it's also been co-opted by corporations and developers, who torque and twist the word in ways that suit their needs, Reder said.

"If the word was 'ecological sustainable development [minister]' ... than we would understand that yes, we're going to conserve our ecology; we're going to make sure that we sustain these lifeblocks that we have, the clean air that comes from our forest, the carbon sequestration that we have from our preserved natural areas; the clean water that exists but won't exist if we don't work on conserving it," Reder said.

"They may say that sustainable development is how they're going to handle it in the province, but that simply is not acceptable.... Scientists around the world aren't saying, 'We really need to work on some development so our environment is healthier. Scientists around the world are saying that we really need to conserve our natural ecosystems and the processes which give us life on this planet."

Reder said he has spent the last nine years bringing conservation initiatives to ministers so they could hold the government to account. In that time, he said the PCs have almost never taken the information and brought it up in question period.

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Photo: Eric Reder at mining protest (CBC)