“We’ve been saying all along that if we ease measures too soon,
the epidemic will resurge even stronger. But with highly contagious
variants in our midst, the threat of uncontrolled epidemic growth is
significantly elevated,” Canada’s chief public health officer said.
“These variants have been smouldering in the background and now threaten to flare up.”
Wood Buffalo, which includes the town of Fort McMurray, declared a state of emergency, CBC reports, and Health Minister Tyler Shandro said Wednesday Alberta would send a shipment of Johnson & Johnson vaccine to the area. The municipality was reporting 1,064 active cases earlier this week, the highest per capita rate in the province, with its classrooms shut down and its only hospital intensive care unit at capacity.
Those numbers are a major concern for First Nations in the area. “It’s out of control,” said Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam, who attributed the surge in new cases to the number of fossil workers flying in and out of the area.
“I am more worried about our health care system,” Adam told Bloomberg. “If that collapses, then all hell breaks loose.”
Aamjiwnaang First Nation is surrounded by ‘Chemical Valley,’ a large complex of petrochemical plants, located near Sarnia, Ont. (Jon Lin Photography/flickr) CC BY-NC
Bill C-230, a private member’s bill that aims to address environmental racism, has passed second reading in a 182-153 vote, and is now under discussion with the environment parliamentary committee before it returns to the House of Commons. If the bill is passed, Canada would become one of the first countries in the world to require the government to develop a national strategy to tackle environmental racism.
As law professors with expertise in matters relating to both the environment and social justice, we argue that this move is necessary both for reasons of justice and also to fulfil Canada’s human rights obligations.
What’s in the proposed bill
Nova Scotia MP Lenore Zann introduced Bill C-230 to compel the minister of the environment to create a national strategy to redress environmental racism within two years.
This strategy would include making efforts to identify, document and monitor environmental racism, creating processes to increase the participation of Indigenous, racialized and other affected communities in environmental policy-making, providing redress for harm due to environmental injustice and ensuring access to clean air and water.
The case for a law like this is stronger than ever. Other jurisdictions are currently seeking to address environmental racism, and the federal government is taking action to tackle climate change and other environmental issues. But most importantly, unjust environmental burdens continue to be placed on racialized communities in Canada.
Trailer for ‘There’s Something in the Water,’ a film about environmental racism in Nova Scotia, based on the book by Ingrid Waldron.
When Baskut Tuncak, the U.N. special rapporteur on toxic chemicals, visited Canada in 2019, he found that Indigenous people are disproportionately affected by toxic exposures. In a statement, he wrote that he had “observed a pervasive trend of inaction by the Canadian government” in addressing the health threats of toxic exposures and their cumulative effects.
Canada, unlike the U.S., lacks data on environmental racism. Bill C-230 would require the federal government to:
“Collect information and statistics relating to the location of environmental hazards … examine the link between race, socioeconomic status and environmental risk … [and] collect information and statistics relating to negative health outcomes in communities that have been affected by environmental racism.”
Historic Africville is a notable case. Africville, a Black community in Halifax, became the site of a railway, a slaughterhouse and an open-pit dump. The city then relocated residents, under the auspices of neighbourhood improvement, and acquired the valuable shoreline. Black communities in Nova Scotia continue to resist proposals to locate environmentally hazardous facilities near their communities.
A man fishes next to a refinery south of Sarnia, Ont., in 2007. CP PHOTO/Dave Chidley
As climate change and its impacts become more significant, it’s important to pay attention to who it affects most. In its recent decision on climate pricing, the Supreme Court of Canada declared that climate change is “an existential challenge” that has the potential to cause “irreversible harm [that] would be felt across the country and would be borne disproportionately by vulnerable communities and regions.”
Recent efforts at reconciliation with First Nations, Inuit and Métis people and the Black Lives Matter movement have demonstrated the continuing salience of — and urgent need for — anti-racist and decolonial strategies. The fight against systemic environmental racism is a key element of this.
Climate bills with a strong focus on environmental justice are also moving through legislatures in New York and Massachusetts. Canada could follow suit by linking its proposed Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act (Bill C-12) with environmental justice and Bill C-230.
The net-zero bill is stronger than Bill C-230 because it would legally bind the feds to achieving the net-zero target by 2050. It also requires five-year targets with mandatory plans and progress reports, and an independent review of the results by the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, so that changes in government will not derail the goal. Adding an explicit commitment to environmental justice and plans to achieve it would enhance Canada’s net-zero bill.
In addition, proposed changes to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act include adding a right to a healthy environment, a commitment to uphold the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the obligation to consider vulnerable populations and the cumulative effects of harmful substances.
A new precedent
The Biden administration’s plan sets a much more ambitious goal than Bill C-230. However, Bill C-230 is the perfect opportunity for Canada to set a national precedent with this demonstrable commitment to environmental justice and addressing the legacy of environmental racism.
Laws and rights, on their own, can be toothless if they do not come with binding duties, explicit standards and adequate enforcement. The government, civil society and citizens will need to be active and vigilant to redress and prevent environmental racism. The law will also need to be backed up with adequate resources and transparency to ensure that the national strategy is participatory, adequately resourced and leads to continual renewal and improvement.
Although Bill C-230 would merely be a first step in a larger process, it is an important one in the right direction that can act as a catalyst for more transformative change, particularly if it is linked with other current policy ambitions, such as the net-zero carbon emissions bill and the proposed amendments to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
The Speech from the Throne opens every new session of Parliament. The Speech introduced the government’s direction and goals, and outlines how it will work to achieve them. One of them was standing up for Canadian values, including progress on reconciliation, gender equality, and systemic racism.
The Council of Canadians understand the direct link between austerity, racist violence and the erosion of democratic processes. The U.S. is bearing the fruit of decades of cruelty — breaking up unions, cutting public services and siphoning public resources and wealth into the hands of the very elite. These policies, also present in Canada, inevitably deepen racial divisions because our systems already marginalize Black, Indigenous and people of colour. Combined with explicit scapegoating, this creates fertile ground to justify political power for white leaders while targeting state and communal violence toward racialized peoples. We respond to threats against democracy.
It’s a daily reality for many Black, Indigenous and People of Colour in Canada. In the wake of public outrage about the systemic racism and disproportionate police violence experienced by Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC), a new report presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council documents troubling findings of environmental racism and injustice in Canada.
So far, the Trudeau government has declined to recognize this right, despite more than 100 MPs from all parties pledging their support and Liberal Party of Canada members voting for it to be a policy priority. While the federal government has committed to “modernizing” CEPA, there is no guarantee that this right will be recognized.
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Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, said the changes wrought by Bill 47 will “completely undermine the whole purpose of the Workers’ Compensation Board.
“These changes are all about reducing access to benefits, reducing premiums paid by employers,” he said.
The changes will make it more difficult for injured workers to navigate the system and more difficult for them to get their applications for benefits and support approved,” he said.
McGowan said the removal of the requirement for employers to keep workers on a company’s extended health benefits program will mean workers can be cut off when they need the family coverage for such things as drugs and dental care.
“They are putting an extra financial burden on the workers and their families at exactly the time when their income is plummeting because they can no longer work,” he said.
Major changes to the Workers’ Compensation Board take effect in Alberta on April 1, including the elimination of an employer’s legal obligation to rehire and accommodate an injured worker.
Internal Alberta Agriculture documents show the UCP government and health officials prioritized the continued operation of the Cargill meat-packing plant over worker safety even as infection rates skyrocketed, a union group and an academic expert say.
The Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) obtained hundreds of pages of documents through freedom of information. CBC News also obtained an audio recording of an April 18, 2020 town hall meeting between government officials and Cargill workers.
The documents include correspondence involving senior health officials, including chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw, and emails from Agriculture Minister Devin Dreeshen’s office, which critics say advanced a narrative that minimized the risk of infection within the Cargill plant.
“If you look at this evidence in its totality, it is clear that keeping the plant open is more important than worker safety,” said Sean Tucker, a University of Regina professor of occupational health and safety, who reviewed the documents.
