Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
Canada’s first environmental racism bill was back before the House of Commons this week after the committee studying the bill approved it without amendment. The bill was first tabled by former Nova Scotia MP Lenore Zann in February 2020. “Environmental racism is something that has been ignored for far too many years,” Zann, the Liberal MP for Cumberland-Colchester, said in bringing forth the private member’s bill for second reading in the House of Commons on Dec. 8, 2020.
Last year, Canadians were battered by wildfires, heat waves and floods, but a new private member’s bill aims to help communities weather the climate crisis. On Feb. 8, NDP MP Niki Ashton tabled a bill that would instruct the Canada Infrastructure Bank to prioritize projects that help the country adapt to or mitigate the effects of climate change. It would also require the bank’s board to have at least three members recommended by Indigenous organizations to represent Inuit, Métis and First Nations people.
A private member’s bill tabled on Tuesday seeks to draw attention to what one Member of Parliament says are insufficient environmental protections for Canada’s lakes and rivers. On Dec. 14, NDP MP Richard Cannings introduced Bill C-214, which would amend the Canadian Navigable Waters Act. The bill aims to add more than a dozen lakes, rivers and creeks in his B.C. riding of South Okanagan-West Kootenay to the law’s list of protected waters in an attempt to regain safeguards that were lost in the Harper-era rollback of environmental protections and never fully reinstated under the current Liberal government.
A recently proposed private member’s bill that would make it a criminal offence to dump raw sewage in waters frequented by fish was dismissed as a step backwards by environmentalists and opposing MPs. Bill C-269, proposing changes to the Fisheries Act, was tabled by former leader of the Conservative Party of Canada Andrew Scheer, and underwent second reading May 10. The proposed changes would basically be a return to the laws under the old Fisheries Act, which were ineffective and rarely enforced, said Mark Mattson, environmental lawyer and president of Swim Drink Fish Canada.
Activists say Aamjiwnaang is one of many examples in Canada of environmental racism, which is defined as the disproportionate exposure that Indigenous, Black and other racialized communities have to environmental hazards. "I didn't actually hear the term environmental racism until about 15 years ago — it wasn't until I was able to connect with other First Nations people across Canada to see what they were experiencing," said Nahmabin. "Now I realize that absolutely, this applies to here."
In Canada's largest city, raw sewage flows into Lake Ontario so often, Toronto tells people they should never swim off the city's beaches for least two days after it rains. Across the country in Mission, B.C., a three-decade-old pipe that carries sewage under the Fraser River to a treatment plant in Abbotsford is so loaded operators can't even slip a camera inside it to look for damage. If that pipe bursts, it will dump 11 million litres of putrid water from area homes and businesses into a critical salmon habitat every day it isn't fixed.
Green Party of Ontario Leader Mike Schreiner will table his first ever private member's bill Wednesday. In it, he asks the province to protect a drinking water source for Guelph, Wellington county and Waterloo region. It's the first bill introduced by the party in the provincial legislature. "For decades the people of Guelph have shown the province how to responsibly use water and what it means to defend water against private interests. Now, climate change and sprawl are putting even more strain on our water supply, so we must take action to protect what's left," Schreiner said in a release prior to tabling the bill Wednesday.
