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Bill C-230 marks an important first step in addressing environmental racism in Canada

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.”

Environmental racism in Canada

Many racialized and low-income communities have borne the brunt of polluting industries and other environmental hazards, including oil and gas extraction, pipelines, refineries, mineral mining and sewage dumping. These communities cause few of these problems, and they benefit the least from the activities and industries at issue. Relatedly, they often have little power to influence site placement, cleanup and other decisions.

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.

The mercury poisoning in Grassy Narrows First Nation and the chemical contamination of Aamjiwnaang First Nation are also tragic examples of the uneven impacts of environmental burdens.

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.

A growing trend

Recent developments, both in Canada and abroad, show some promise in terms of recognizing and protecting environmental rights, and ending environmental racism. In the United States, President Joe Biden signed an executive order in January that has a significant focus on environmental justice. It includes a “commitment to delivering 40 per cent of climate investment benefits to disadvantaged communities.”

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.

Angela Lee, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Ryerson University and Heather McLeod-Kilmurray, Professor, Faculty of Law, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Little Protection from Environmenatl Racism in Canada

Becker1999/Flickr, (CC BY 2.0) Some rights reserved

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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How we respond to threats against democracy

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People looking for democracy

Christina Warner
1 day ago

I was horrified by the scenes of violence that unfolded earlier this week in Washington, D.C. Witnessing the violent interruption of democratic proceedings so close to home is unsettling, and the continued presence of white supremacy in our society is deeply disturbing.

These actions, motivated by white supremacy and hatred, are reprehensible but could have been predicted. They come after years of downplaying the resurgence of organized white nationalist groups in the United States, while leaders sowed mistrust of public institutions through misinformation and gutting public services until they were unreliable.

As a former Washington, D.C. resident, I watched first-hand the growth of the Tea Party’s influence in state and federal governments, as well as in local communities. The Tea Party was only one of many groups normalizing white supremacy in mainstream social, political and economic life over the past few years.

The culmination of ongoing wars, deepened inequality from austerity and ongoing racism, and flagrant fearmongering from politicians like Donald Trump – but not Trump alone – created the perfect context for the brazen insurrection we saw this week. White, wealthier America has dismissed the deepened and violent presence of white nationalist groups for the past decades, and now, as I watch the news, I am conscious of how these same risks are deeply intertwined with the interest of powerful forces that also threaten Canadian society.

Indeed, many of those who stormed Capitol Hill are aligned with the Proud Boys, a white nationalist organization with roots in Canada. In Canada, several pro-Trump rallies broke out on Wednesday. And some of our political leaders have stoked the same fires of hatred and division.

At the Council of Canadians, we 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 see these divisions when the RCMP targets Indigenous land and water defenders, as they did with the Wet’suwet’en, and with the double standard in policing when RCMP inaction emboldened non-Indigenous fishers in their violence towards the Mi’kmaq peoples. We see it in the disproportionate representation of Indigenous, Black and brown individuals in the Canadian carceral systems. We see it in the fact that communities of colour have borne the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic. And we also see it when Premier Jason Kenney tries to break unions, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promotes an agenda of privatization, and when Opposition Leader Erin O’Toole declares the need to “take Canada back” (from whom?!?).

This is the impact of scarcity politics. Cuts to public institutions in wealthy countries like Canada (or the U.S.) make it harder for people to meet their most basic needs like health care, housing or food security. This austerity is often presented as tax and spending cuts as a means of economic growth. We know this doesn’t work — tax and spending cuts funnel wealth needed for effective public institutions into the pockets of a few. This is cyclical: budget cuts mean institutions can’t provide as many services; people go without; people get frustrated with the institutions that are supposed to help them; there is less political support for those institutions and budget cuts continue.

In countries like Canada and the U.S. where colonization and racism are part of our histories, people trying to cope with increased suffering under inequitable policies are often driven to blame others. Instead of pulling our collective voice to fight for strong public institutions that meet our needs, we spend our time targeting one another out of an artificial sense of competition. While we have a harder time paying rent or protecting ourselves from pandemics, we scapegoat one another along lines of citizenship, race or ethnicity, or Indigenous status. Instead of looking at the systems at play in inequitable fisheries, for example, settlers target Mik’maq livelihood fisheries with direct violence. Black, Indigenous and all people of colour disproportionately suffer poverty, violence and death because of this cycle, while more and more people across society from all backgrounds share in those economic struggles to a growing extent.

We fight back against the kind of violence we saw this week by refusing to buy-in to the false pressure of scarcity politics. We must instead come together to refuse racist scapegoating and protect our public institutions so that they benefit everyone living in Canada. We cannot be divided.

As the Council of Canadians, we believe that the best way to respond is to fight white supremacy at home and to strengthen our democracies and social support systems.

Politicians across the political spectrum must stop sowing mistrust of policies that support equity and Indigenous sovereignty and must explicitly speak out against white nationalist groups like the Proud Boys, Yellow Vesters and others. They must support public institutions and the distribution of resources to all people living in Canada.

Those of us who, like me, have been shaped by our whiteness, our wealth and our relative privilege must pay attention to and take leadership from people who live and work from different perspectives. We will learn how to disrupt this history of white supremacy and find a new way of working, together.

At the Council, we are organizing and advocating to ensure:

A COVID-19 response that prioritizes the health and wellbeing of people, especially those made vulnerable by existing inequalities.
Climate and water policies that protect these resources while addressing social injustices of environmental and economic racism.
Real and lasting investments in our public services that strengthen the connection between government, communities and people.
We challenge the power of multinational corporations, many of which have been complicit in the rise of divisions.
We all confront Canada’s own white supremacy and colonialism whenever and wherever we see it while strengthening our resolve for justice and equity.

Thank you for your support and thank you in advance for your commitment to people, the planet and our democracy. We have so much work to do, but I am heartened knowing that we do this work together.

Christina Warner is the Director of Campaigns and Organizing at the Council of Canadians. She grew up in southern Indiana, and spent the years following the economic recession in Washington, D.C. advocating for U.S. Economic Justice, reforming carceral systems and an end to anti-Muslim discrimination. In 2014, she moved to Winnipeg where she completed a Master’s in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg that focused on community organizing in contexts of white supremacy and austerity. She now lives in Toronto.

Canada Revenue Agency launched a database listing every organization that received the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) subsidy. Some of the beneficiaries are right-wing groups.

Leaked Alberta school curriculum in urgent need of guidance from Indigenous wisdom teachings

Stories for good guidance

When teaching and learning is reduced to simply memorizing and recalling information, this ignores the complex and varied ways that humans perceive the world.

School curricula are compilations of stories told to students regarding knowledge and their relationship to it. The stories children hear in schools are meant to foster qualities and understandings that express specific notions of what it means to be human and how to live as citizens.

As a descendent of the amiskwaciwiyiniwak (Beaver Hills people) and the Papaschase Cree who has studied how Indigenous philosophies can expand and enhance our understandings of what and how children should be taught, I find there is much at stake in these curriculum debates.

Soon after Alberta’s United Conservative Party (UCP) was elected in April 2019, a UCP-appointed panel of experts reviewed curriculum work undertaken by the previous NDP government and Education Minister Adriana LaGrange announced a new direction. The government says the leaked material consists of only early drafts, but the Alberta Teachers Association has criticized the goverment’s process and its direction.

In the context of Alberta today, we need leadership that provides foresight and guidance on how to understand and address the key concerns of our times: climate change, systemic racism, wellness and economic sustainability. We need stories that teach how humans are related to each other and to all life forms rather than reinforcing inherited colonial divides.

Dwayne Donald discusses how 2009 Alberta curriculum advanced ideas of resilience understood within the confines of our existing capitalist oil economy.

Reviving colonial myths

The leaked curriculum documents express a clear desire to revive the old story of the Canadian nation told in schools for many generations. This story characterizes Canada as a nation created through the hard work and perseverance of settlers who brought prosperity and progress to a land perceived to be empty.

Prioritizing this narrative marginalizes Indigenous standpoints and experiences. It draws on a divisive colonial approach to education that my research has explored through the mythic symbol of the fort at the heart of the creation story in Canada.

The fort is a symbol of colonialism that teaches separation and exclusion of Indigenous Peoples from everyone else. In the Canadian West, forts normalize the colonial divides in Canadian society. Schools and what they teach are founded on these colonial divides. Such teachings reinforce Eurocentric standards and enhance existing divides.

When European explorers landed on Turtle Island they instigated a centuries-long process of imposing a universalized model of the human being upon people they encountered. Jamaican cultural theorist Sylvia Wynter has noted that this process served to present a European-specific conception of being human that is presented as universally good for all people to aspire to be.

Formal schooling became a primary means by which those with power could discipline the citizenry to conform to this model. This has resulted in schooling approaches that perpetuate falsely universalized assumptions of human knowing and being. These assumptions have become so pervasive that it has become difficult to imagine different ways to be a human being.

This struggle is perhaps the most pressing challenge we face today if we wish to live in more collaborative ways.

Walls of Fort Edmonton — Fort Edmonton seen in July 2014.
(John Stanton/Wikimedia Commons), CC BY-SA

Kinship relations

The recent leaked curriculum documents in Alberta are evidence of the desire to continue with this “fort-ified” approach to education. They provide little guidance on how to proceed differently. What is urgently required instead are stories that teach young people to be good relatives to their human and more-than-human kin.

The Cree wisdom concepts most central to this understanding of kinship relationality are wîcêhtowin and wâhkôhtowin.

wîcêhtowin refers to the life-giving energy that is generated when people face each other as relatives and build trustful relationships by connecting with others by putting respect, kindness and compassion at the forefront of our interactions.

Translated into English, wâhkôhtowin is generally understood to refer to human kinship. wâhkôhtowin describes practical ethical guidelines regarding how you are related to your kin and how to conduct yourself as a good relative. However, wâhkôhtowin also emphasizes more-than-human kinship relations. This emphasis guides human beings to understand themselves as fully enmeshed in networks of relationships.

Following the kinship relational wisdom of wâhkôhtowin, we’re called to repeatedly acknowledge and honour the fact that the sun, the land, the wind, the water, the animals and the trees (just to name a few) are quite literally our relatives: we carry parts of each of them inside our own bodies.

Taken together, wîcêhtowin and wâhkôhtowin can be understood as promoting an ecological understanding of kinship relationality that becomes apparent to us as human beings when we honour the sacred ecology that supports all life and living.

Today, now more than ever it seems, young people need stories that teach them how to be good relatives with all their relations — human and more-than-human.

Dwayne Donald, Associate professor, Faculty of Education, University of Alberta

Dr. Dwayne Donald

Dr. Dwayne Donald is a descendent of the amiskwaciwiyiniwak (Beaver Hills people) and the Papaschase Cree and is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta. His work focuses on ways in which Indigenous philosophies can expand and enhance our understandings of curriculum and pedagogy.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Steve MacLellan

Ramble On

Tag Archives: racism

How we respond to threats against democracy