Environment Committee on April 14th, 2021

Evidence of meeting #25 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was health.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Bill C-230

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Ingrid Waldron Associate Professor, School of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Dalhousie University, As an Individual

Clerk of the Committee Ms. Angela Crandall

Laura Farquharson Director General, Legislative and Regulatory Affairs, Department of the Environment

David Morin Director General, Safe Environments Directorate, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health

Silke Neve Director, Information and Indicators Division, Strategic Policy Branch, Department of the Environment

Pascal Roberge Director, Program Integration Division, Science and Technology Branch, Department of the Environment

4:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

This meeting is called to order.

Welcome to meeting number 25 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. Pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, March 24, 2021, the committee is commencing consideration of Bill C-230, an act respecting the development of a national strategy to redress environmental racism.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules. Members and witnesses may speak in either official language, because, among other things, interpretation services are available for this meeting.

Dr. Waldron, I guess you have seen that you can choose to listen to the floor version, the English version or the French version.

For members and witnesses, please wait until you are recognized before clicking on your microphone icon to unmute your mike. The rest is pretty much common sense.

Each witness, Ms. Zann and Dr. Waldron, will have five minutes for opening comments. Then we'll go to a round of questions—actually two rounds of questions, because this first hour is dedicated to our two witnesses. Then we'll have some departmental officials for the second hour.

We will now start.

Ms. Zann, congratulations on getting your bill through second reading to the committee. The floor is yours for five minutes.

4:25 p.m.

Liberal

Lenore Zann Liberal Cumberland—Colchester, NS

Thank you, everybody, for being here, and thank you for your comments in the House at second reading. They were very interesting.

I'd also like to thank Dr. Waldron for being here today, because she really has been the inspiration for me for presenting this bill, Bill C-230, the National Strategy to Redress Environmental Racism Act

Colleagues, like systemic racism, environmental racism is something that, sadly, has been part of the fabric of Canada for too many years. Environmental racism refers to the fact that communities of colour are disproportionately burdened with health hazards due to policies and practices that have been forced upon them and forced them to live in proximity to sources of toxic waste, such as dumps, toxic waste sites, sewage works, mines, landfills, power stations, chemical plants, major roads and emitters of airborne particulate matter. As a result, these communities suffer greatly and they suffer greater rates of health problems attendant on hazardous pollutants.

Although the term “environmental racism” seems new to some, it was actually coined in 1982 by African American civil rights leader Benjamin Chavez, who described 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.”

Public awareness has grown about this issue in the last number of years and there is no doubt in my mind that the time has come for government to act both to acknowledge and address the issue. Surely we owe this to all Canadians.

I am sure that as lawmakers we all can agree it is a human right for all Canadians to have clean air and water in their communities. I know our government is working very hard to make sure that happens.

I did become aware of this issue only about seven years ago when I first met Dr. Ingrid Waldron when she explained what her research and data collecting was proving about the existence of environmental racism in Nova Scotia. If anyone still questions the reality of environmental racism, I really recommend Dr. Waldron's book, There's Something In The Water, or to watch the Netflix documentary based on the book.

The short summary of the bill requires that the Minister of Environment, in consultation with representatives of provincial and municipal governments of indigenous communities and other affected communities 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 and collecting data, including on the socio-economic circumstances and the physical and mental effects on communities across Canada that are affected by environmental racism.

We know that these effects are wide-ranging, from skin rashes and upset stomachs, to more serious illness, such as respiratory illness, cardiovascular disease, reproductive morbidity, including pre-term births and babies born with Down's syndrome, as well as various cancers that disproportionately affect women.

There is evidence that many chronic diseases in indigenous communities, for instance, are not primarily due to genetics or internal factors, but actually to external factors, that is, what's in the air, in the water, in our environment.

I am grateful to members who have already supported my bill thus far, including the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, who seconded Bill C-230.

I would suggest that this is an example of what Canadians truly want to see in their government, especially in these dangerous times, parliamentarians working together to improve life for all Canadians.

Bill C-230 is a bill that would make Canada an international leader in addressing environmental, social and public health issues that impact indigenous, Black and other racialized and vulnerable communities from coast to coast to coast.

This issue has become even more urgent, I would say, in light of the growing public awareness of systemic racism and the epidemic of racism, misogyny, gender-based violence and femicide that the COVID-19 pandemic has stoked, since it has disproportionately impacted vulnerable communities.

Please do the right thing, colleagues, and support Bill C-230.

The strategy must include measures to: examine the link between race and socio-economic status and environmental risk; collect information and statistics relating to the location of environmental hazards; collect information and statistics relating to negative health outcomes in communities that have been affected; and assess the administration and enforcement of environmental laws in each province.

It must also include measures to address environmental racism, including: possible amendments to federal laws, policies and programs; the involvement of community groups in environmental policy-making; compensation for individuals or communities; ongoing funding for affected communities; and access of affected communities to clean air and water.

With that, colleagues, I will leave it there.

Dr. Waldron will continue.

4:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia

Dr. Waldron, the screen is yours.

4:35 p.m.

Dr. Ingrid Waldron Associate Professor, School of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Dalhousie University, As an Individual

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.