Madam Speaker, I rise to support this motion.
In June 1997 the Arctic environmental strategy, northern contaminants program issued the Canadian Arctic contaminants report. This report was the result of 6 years of scientific research and more than 100 studies. The results confirmed what northerners had been saying for years, that the environment is changing, people are becoming sick by compromised immune systems, thyroid malfunction, tumours and cancer. These are unheard of through thousands of years of northern people's histories. The fish, the caribou, the birds, they too are sick, the very food and sustenance of the north.
The science identified a complete contamination of the northern ecosystem. Persistent contaminants could be found throughout the Arctic ecosystem: air, surface, sea water, suspended sediments, show, fish, marine mammals, seabirds and terrestrial plants and animals.
The most frightening and shocking findings were that contaminants in northern people are in mothers' breast milk. PCBs and other chemicals are there. There are very high levels of thyroid malfunction in the north as well. The science calls it POPs, persistent organic pollutants. They persist and they are unmanageable.
The New Democratic Party recognizes these POPs are an international concern, an issue that threatens ecosystems around the globe, a danger that is all too real for aboriginal peoples through the north as well as anyone else who lives in the north.
We support this motion that calls for strong action on POPs and we commend the hon. member for Davenport for raising this issue, for his persistence and his dedication in doing so. We are truly fortunate to have such a member of parliament among us.
Canada's Arctic is one of the most susceptible and proven dumping grounds on earth for these insidious poisons. The cold climate acts as a sink. These pollutants do not evaporate to be carried elsewhere. They persist and they remain in the north. They are known as the dirty dozen. They are acknowledged deadlies and there are thousands more as yet undefined and unidentified.
The United Nations meeting in Montreal for the elimination of POPs, held this June, is a significant step toward reaching a global treaty by 2000. Canada's environment minister called for the elimination of POPs which do include PCBs.
Yet she refuses to clean up the PCB laden Marwell tar pit in Whitehorse, Yukon. This government owned the land, allowed it to be polluted then transferred it to the Yukon tar pit, PCBs and all. Yet this government refuses any responsibility for these deadly pollutants in the middle of a major city in the north.
I worry that this government has little regard for transboundary contaminants in the north. An excellent example of the obvious indifference demonstrated by this government to the environmental degradation in Yukon and the north is not limited to the mass deforestation encouraged by this government.
I call to the attention of the House a request for information on possible transboundary contaminants related to four decades of the United States military operations in Alaska. POPs and environmental contaminants are known to be carried by the wind and water. These operations were conducted within 200 kilometres of Canada's borders, perhaps carried across our borders.
On September 29, 1998, I asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs to determine if possible cross-border environmental contamination of Canadian territory, Yukon, had occurred. This request was related to the following five points: chemical and biological weapons testing at the Gerstle River site of Alaska; transportation of replacement nuclear reactor cores to Fort Greely in 1964, 1965, 1966 and 1970; the March 1998 bunker bomb testing using depleted uranium bomb cases just across the border from Yukon; chemical weapons testing at Fort Wainright in the early 1990s; unexploded ordinance, nuclear waste storage, landfills and disposal sites at various points in Alaska.
We have not received a response to date, this after the November 30 meeting in Washington D.C. with the minister's counterpart Madeline Albreight. If northerners cannot receive a basic response from this government to concerns related to environmental contaminants such as chemical and biological weapons testing adjacent to the Yukon Territory, how can we expect any leadership related to international efforts related to persistent organic pollutants?
I hope we as a nation can acknowledge the terrible price the north is expected to pay for inaction. Action is needed.
I quote Craig Boljkovak, part of the U.N. treaty on persistent organic pollutants. Canada's moral authority is in peril:
At present Canada is headed down a road where its hard fought gains in the form of a POPs treaty are being seriously undermined by its weak domestic record. Political intervention is necessary at the highest level to put the government back on track. The environment and its human inhabitants deserve no less.
Canada's international reputation belies its lack of domestic action on POPs and other toxics.
The government has done a laudable job of publicizing the plight of the Arctic and the Great Lakes among countries considering action on POPs and Canada can be considered a driving force for a treaty. This high level of international activity unfortunately is not matched by domestic action on POPs.
These are the very citizens in the north who depend on our government to protect them and to protect the environment and food source in the north.
Action is needed. Leadership is needed. Political will is needed to reduce the pollutants, prevent their creation and to clean up old messes.
Yukon has over 200 abandoned military sites that need to be cleaned up and again this government cut funding to the Arctic environment strategy which identified these contaminated sites for clean-up.
The United States has a serious involvement. It has abandoned distant early warning sites, old military sites and airfield sites. The list goes on and on. Much of this was done during the second world war but that does not mean it should not be cleaned up.
I conclude with the words of Norma Kassi, a woman who represented the flatlands of Old Crow for many years. She is a Gwitchin woman:
I was raised on Old Crow Flats in northern Yukon. Old Crow Flats is one of the world's great wetlands, having more than 2000 lakes throughout 600,000 hectares just above the Arctic circle.
The name of my people, Vuntut Gwitchin, means the caribou people of the lakes. We've lived here for thousands and thousands of years.
For a long time I've watched the birds come back to Old Crow Flats every spring.
I remember when I was about ten years old, sitting with my grandfather at the lake where a lot of birds used to come. They would land and play and meet one another after their long trip. They made a lot of noise. They were singing. They were happy. They were telling stories. These birds I only knew in my own language.
My grandfather said to me “You know, someday when you are a woman you are going to see a lot of changes. When there are only loons out there you are going to know that something is wrong with the land and the weather”.
That was 30 years ago. Now I go back to Old Crow Flats every three or four years and I see the changes. I sit at the same spot and I remember my grandfather's words.
Every time I return I see fewer animals, fewer fish, fewer birds. The water is silent and so crystal clear I can see to the bottom. There used to be so much activity, so much aquatic life, insects and little bugs. But now I can't. And now I see a pair of loons only out there and that is about it.
These are Norma's words and I think we should take them as a warning and act before it is too late.
Again I would really like to stress that often the north is overlooked. It is not a large population but people are getting sick. People of Old Crow have suffered an incredible amount of loss through cancer, yet their elders have remained strong, those who lived off the land. The younger generation is suffering. I do not think as a country we should be allowing that to go on.