Dear members of the environment and sustainability committee, I would like to thank you for inviting me to speak to Bill C-230, and environmental racism more broadly.
I would like to begin by addressing arguments—persistent arguments over the years—that since race is not a biological fact, systemic racism could not possibly exist in Canada. Indeed, it is the case that race is neither genetically programmed nor a biological fact. For example, there are no genetic characteristics possessed by all Black people but not by non-Black people. There is no gene or cluster of genes common to all white people but not to non-white people. Different races are not marked by important differences in gene frequencies.
However, while race is not a biological fact, it is a fact that race has been and continues to be used to categorize and divide people based on physical traits such as skin colour, hair texture, facial features, etc., and to include and exclude based on these physical traits. Society is racialized and race is part of that social reality. Race developed over the years as a principle of social organization and identity formation. Humans create divisions and produce racial categories. Race has social currency and is used as a basis to deny certain groups access to various resources, services and opportunities.
Systemic racism is indeed a reality in Canada and around the world. Systemic racism refers to the laws, rules and norms woven into our social systems that result in the unequal distribution of resources, such as the denial of access, participation and equity to racialized people for services such as education, employment and housing. Racism—systemic racism—manifests in the policies, practices and procedures within our systems that may directly or indirectly promote, sustain or entrench differential advantage or privilege for people of certain races.
In other words, race is a material reality—I should know, I am Black—that has consequences for people on the ground. The material reality and consequences of racism for indigenous, Black and other racialized groups in Canada include higher rates of unemployment, higher rates of income insecurity, higher rates of poverty, segregation in poor neighbourhoods, poorer health outcomes and disproportionate exposure to environmental hazards due to the placement of dangerous projects by government. Environmental racism, then, is a form of systemic racism because it manifests in environmental policy-making and decision-making in ways that disproportionately burden certain communities through the placement or siting of environmentally dangerous projects in their communities.
Why is Bill C-230 important? It is urgent that we address over 70 years of environmental racism that has disproportionately impacted those communities—communities whose social and economic well-being and health have already been compromised by long-standing structural determinants of health, such as unemployment and underemployment, over-policing and over-incarceration, income insecurity and poverty, food insecurity and housing insecurity. Bill C-230 would provide the government with a framework to examine how race, socio-economic status and residence in remote areas that are near environmental hazards intersect to shape health outcomes in these communities.
Bill C-230 would also provide affected communities with opportunities to be involved in environmental policy-making and decision-making, which they have been excluded from. It is important that the communities that are most burdened by the siting of hazardous projects in their communities be given opportunities to have a say in what happens in their communities.
In conclusion, it is important to state that in the case of environmental policy-making, a rising tide does not lift all boats. The approach to environmental policy-making in Canada has reflected a kind of universalism that suggests if environmental burdens experienced by all Canadians are addressed, those who are most affected by those burdens will benefit. The notion that environmental policy should not focus on specific racial groups dismisses the long history of placing these hazardous projects in our most vulnerable communities. It is an approach that has failed, since polluting industries continue to be disproportionately located in these same communities.
The truth is that policies work best when they are strategic and directly target the social ills in communities that are most affected. Therefore, it is crucial that we have legislation that centres race in environmental policy-making and decision-making, since the communities that are disproportionately harmed are those that are racialized. Once again, race is real. It has material realities. My hope, then, is that Bill C-230 is that legislation.
Thank you.