Feds have opportunity to finally address environmental racism

Bill C-230 is Canada’s chance to take a monumental first step in understanding and addressing environmental racism. The private member’s bill brought by Liberal MP Lenore Zann, entitled “an act respecting the development of a national strategy to redress environmental racism,” is expected to go into second reading on March 23. If passed, the bill will require the environment minister, Jonathan Wilkinson, to “develop a national strategy to promote efforts across Canada to redress the harm caused by environmental racism. It also provides for reporting requirements in relation to the strategy.” In developing the strategy, the minister would consult with provincial, municipal and Indigenous governments, and affected communities and people. The strategy itself would examine the links between race, socio-economic status, and environmental risk; collect information and statistics on environmental harm and health outcomes; and assess the administration and enforcement of environmental laws in each province. Importantly, the strategy would try and tackle environmental racism supporting measures to amending laws, policies and programs; compensation and funding for affected communities, and provide access to clean air and water. Environmental racism is a form of systemic racism, whereby Black, Indigenous, and other people of colour are disproportionately burdened with environmental and health hazards through policies and practices that have forced to live in proximity to sources of toxic waste such as landfills, mines, major roads, sewage facilities, chemical facilities, and sources that emit airborne or waterborne hazardous pollutants. As a result, these communities suffer a greater rate of health problems. Black civil rights leader Benjamin Chavis coined the term, describing it as “racial discrimination in environmental policy-making, the enforcement of regulations and laws, the deliberate targeting of communities of colour for toxic waste facilities, the official sanctioning of the life-threatening presence of poisons and pollutants in our communities, and the history of excluding people of colour from leadership of the ecology movements.” Although the issues have been longstanding, in its 2019 report, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Toxics highlighted Canada’s issues with and patterns of environmental racism, including the mercury pollution crisis in Grassy Narrows; health risks posed to Indigenous peoples by the multibillion-dollar oil sands in Fort McMurray, Alta.; the chemical pollution impacts to the Aamjiwnaang First Nation in Sarnia, Ont.; and African and Indigenous communities in Nova Scotia who are disproportionately situated near industrial waste and garbage dumps—the latter recently highlighted in the 2019 Netflix documentary There’s Something in the Water co-directed by Elliot Page, based on the book of the same name by Ingrid Waldron. There are several problems in our municipal, provincial, and federal laws and policies that have allowed these abuses to continue against marginalized communities. A law like this won’t fix things like a magic wand. We cannot uproot people from their homes overnight, or remove toxic chemicals from the air with the flick of a switch. Take Indigenous communities under boil water advisories. There are still about 58 long-term boil-water advisories on reserves, across the country, affecting thousands of people. We have the information, the statistics, and even some of the funding, but it still hasn’t fixed the problem. What is going to be important is accountability and action. That means changing our laws, compensating communities immediately, and providing access to the health care and resources they need. Furthermore, we need corporate and government accountability. As a result of Flint water crisis in Michigan, in which the drinking water for the city was contaminated with lead and bacteria leading to illness and death, the former Michigan governor Rick Snyder and eight other officials were criminally charged for their role in the crisis, while several class-actions and civil suits have been filed against different levels of government and government agencies. If we have the financial and technical capacity to address these issues now, why wait? Why wait until more people have died and lawsuits have been filed. Until then, we must pass Bill-230 and commit ourselves as a nation to finding solutions to redress and prevent the harm caused by environmental racism. Priyanka Vittal is legal counsel at Greenpeace Canada. The Hill Times