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.
Associate Professor, School of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
We are not the individuals you choose to protect over your group. That's how—
Liberal
Ya'ara Saks Liberal York Centre, ON
Okay. I don't want to interrupt you, but I'd like to continue with the questioning.
We are talking about the agency and communities to be able to change our perspectives. The benefit of this bill and the assessment process that is proposed would allow us to look at some of those things.
Do you see Bill C-230 as providing a benefit in addressing systemic racism through this series of assessments on the provincial level and also on the federal level? Our federal government, as part of its throne speech, made a commitment to look at systemic racism. This is an integral part of that, as I said.
I would like to hear from you and also Ms. Zann, depending on my time left. The chair will let me know.
Associate Professor, School of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
This is another form of systemic and environmental racism. We have racism in housing. We have racism in health. We have racism in education. We have racism in every single social structure in this country and in every country around the world.
I'm not sure if I remember your question.
Liberal
Ya'ara Saks Liberal York Centre, ON
Would Bill C-230 provide us a way to begin to address systemic racism in terms of the environment?
Associate Professor, School of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
Yes.
As Lenore said, you can't address a problem unless you know what the problem is. The collection of race-based data for this bill, the collection of race-based data by race and socio-economic status, environmental risk, and also health outcomes is very crucial. We know what's happening.
I work on qualitative issues. I have the stories of the communities, but we also need the statistics, right? Those two things, the stories that many of us have shared over the years as well as the statistics provide a context for government to say, “Okay. This is what is happening and now we can address it.”
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
We'll have to move on.
Madam Pauzé, please, you have two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
Good afternoon.
Dr. Waldron, I'd like to address you.
Ms. Zann spoke earlier about the study that you conducted across Canada.
I'll address the issue of nuclear waste, which is particularly close to my heart. I don't know if you're familiar with the Chalk River Laboratories, which aren't far from Ottawa, and all the dealings around the disposal of radioactive waste in Labrador.
We certainly understand that remote indigenous communities need energy. However, nuclear energy means nuclear waste. Small modular reactor projects are often presented as partnership opportunities with these communities.
Canada used its declaratory power to make nuclear energy a federal jurisdiction. What is your position on the government's responsibility with respect to nuclear waste management?
Associate Professor, School of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
Is that for Dr. Waldron?
Associate Professor, School of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
I have no idea where it should go, but I do know that it shouldn't go in an indigenous community again, right? That's what, I guess, environmental assessments are for, right? Environmental assessments are about determining where particular projects go. Thus far, environmental assessments have not been equitable. They haven't considered existing vulnerabilities in indigenous and other communities. They haven't considered what we call the social determinants of health.
The question of where something should go is not my role, because I'm a professor, but it's the role of the people who make those decisions. What I'm asking for is that the people who make those decisions, through an environmental assessment or whatever tool they use, make decisions that consider existing vulnerabilities in these communities. These communities have had, as I said, long-standing structural inequities due to colonialism, and they should make sure that what they do doesn't further compromise their social well-being and health.
I have no idea where it should go, but what I'm asking, and what this bill can do, is ensure that government makes much more considered decisions in that assessment. Look at the full context of these communities, the social, economic and political context and their health and vulnerability, before they make decisions that will further compromise the well-being of these communities.
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
I'm sorry to interrupt you, Dr. Waldron, but I don't have much time left.
Do I have a few seconds left, Mr. Chair?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
You have enough time to make a comment, but not to get a response.
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
I'll make a comment directed at Dr. Waldron.
Dr. Waldron, I'd like you to send us the documentation on the projects you were able to analyze across Canada. Ms. Zann said that your study didn't just focus on just Nova Scotia, so I'd like to know what's been done in other parts of the country.
Associate Professor, School of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
No, that's a bit incorrect.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
It's not a question; it was a comment. We don't have time for an answer.
If you could provide this information to the committee, Madam Pauzé would appreciate it.
We'll go to Mr. Bachrach for two and a half minutes.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dr. Waldron, you mentioned something about the social determinants of health and also this idea of clout and decision-making power. You've identified indigenous-led environmental assessments as a key way of addressing environmental racism. I wonder if you could expand on why that's an important strategy.
The second part of my question is around the presence of poverty in communities. Obviously, poverty is also a powerful social determinant of health and interacts with this idea of decision-making power. Often these toxic sites come with revenue, especially in a modern context, and how those decisions play out potentially complicate this question of environmental health.
Associate Professor, School of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
Some indigenous communities have asked for indigenous-led environmental assessments because they felt excluded. There's this term, as you know, “participatory democracy”. It's not simply about including people in decision-making, but also the way you do that in culturally specific ways.
Indigenous-led environmental assessments would allow not only indigenous people to have a say at the get-go, not at the end, not in the middle, but right at the start, on what's happening in their own communities, but it would also be done in a way that respects indigenous ecological theory or model. In your western understanding of the environment, in our understanding of your western-trained individuals, we see a separation between land and body and animals and plants. That's the classic Euro-western understanding of the world. Indigenous people and African people see it very differently. They have a much more holistic understanding of our world. They see the connection between the land and the body and animals. Everything is one. If you desecrate their land, you are harming them. You are harming their bodies, their communities, their health and their well-being.
An indigenous-led assessment would allow for the incorporation of what is called the indigenous ways of knowing. One of the reasons I think we do what we do is that we have a very different understanding from indigenous people about the fact that if you're harming the land, you are going to harm me as a community. People who are trained in Euro-western ways of knowing don't really get that. They don't understand that. That's why we have the separation between.... We have psychology departments. This separation from the body, we see the mind as very separate in Euro-western philosophy.
An indigenous-led assessment would be about all of that. It would be about not just allowing them to be in the process from the get-go, but making sure it's done in culturally specific ways, making sure you're doing it in their communities, making sure you're communicating the information to them in culturally specific ways, making sure they get to have their indigenous ways of knowing, indigenous epistemologies incorporated into environmental assessments.
Poverty is a strong determinant of health. All the communities we're talking about are not only racialized, they're also low-income or poor, and they also live in remote areas. The intersection of poverty and race and residential patterns makes for the lack of power that these communities have to fight back against environmental racism.
Liberal
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
Thank you.
I want to go back to talking about water. It's important for our committee. Shortly we're going to be doing a study on that, and of course clean water is huge. I would suggest it's a primary objective of any environmental legislation. In fact, in the first committee meetings we had a year ago, we met with the University of Saskatchewan Global Institute for Water Security to talk about this very thing.
Ms. Zann, do you believe all Canadians should have access to clean water, regardless of their income level or ethnic background?
Conservative
Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK
Okay, great. Earlier this year the Auditor General released a report on access to safe drinking water in first nations communities. The findings were that Indigenous Services Canada did not meet its commitment to eliminate long-term drinking water advisories in first nations communities, and efficiencies in some water systems had not been addressed.
Indigenous Services Canada had not amended the operations and maintenance funding formula for first nations water systems since it was first developed 30 years ago. The salary gap had contributed to problems in—
