Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Cumberland—Colchester for bringing forward Bill C-230. It is an honour for me to second it.
My home was originally in Nova Scotia, and my first experience in understanding environmental racism was the horror of the Sydney tar ponds in industrial Cape Breton. They are now sort of cleaned up. They are at least buried. I am flagging that what was called the tar ponds was originally an estuary of the Mi'kmaq fishing grounds. The Mi'kmaq were forced off that land and put in Membertou in order to build a steel mill and coke oven, and the only African, Black, community in Cape Breton was between the coke ovens and the steel mill. The population had huge levels of cancer. It was the biggest toxic waste site in Canada.
I wish we had had the bill here in place then. I would ask the hon. member if she has any reflections on that, and thank her again.