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House Hansard - 58

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 26, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 58 - Apr/26/22
Ms. Ya'ara Saks (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, Lib.)
Madam Speaker, I cannot express how happy I am to talk about this bill. I would like to congratulate Ms. Zann, because her leadership on environmental racism and justice is exemplary. She started the fight as a provincial member and continued her advocacy so fiercely and so strongly, and I had the honour and the pleasure, along with my colleague over there who spoke earlier, to learn from her and Dr. Waldron how pressing an issue environmental racism and environmental justice is in this country for Black, indigenous and racialized communities. We should congratulate all of those who have advocated and fought for this. We are, in this moment, able to bring this back to the table, where it belongs. We need to celebrate that leadership and honour the importance this moment holds with this legislation, because systemic racism is a fact in Canada and around the world. One of my Conservative colleagues questioned earlier the ability of the government to even do this and whether it would be able to act and respond to this. I will dig a little into my Jewish roots. We have a beautiful expression in Hebrew that I will share: [Member spoke in Hebrew] [English] “It is not upon you to finish building the kingdom, but you are not allowed to step away from the opportunity to start the work.” [Member spoke in Hebrew] [English] “You are not free to release yourself from beginning this work.” This work has been waiting for over 70 years. For 70 years, communities across this country have suffered. Their socio-economic status and health and well-being have been impacted in ways that we do not even begin to understand unless we pass legislation such as this and until we begin to dig into the science and the data to truly understand the harms that have been done. I am so happy to support this legislation as it comes into the House and the work that needs to be done, because I worked on it already. I want to thank again Dr. Ingrid Waldron, Ms. Zann and all of those champions. We have so much to learn and we also have so much to fix and heal. We need the understanding, the data, the knowledge, the legislation and the framework in place so we can learn, ask the questions and be challenged on those answers to know how to move forward. The tide rises, but it is not equal for everyone. That is what we know about environmental justice and environmental racism. Not everyone is in the same boat and not everyone has had the same experience, and we have an obligation to make sure all Canadians in this country have a healthy and safe environment to live, to grow, to thrive and to succeed in. Unless we ask those tough questions in a framework such as this national strategy, we are not able to give them the answers they deserve. I would challenge my colleagues who question our ability to do this not to question the ability to do it, but just to do it. We do not need to ask why, maybe, if or if it is possible. It is possible, because we choose to make it possible. For the sake of marginalized and racialized communities, we absolutely have the obligation to do it. To each and every one of us in the House who has fought for the principles of climate change, such as my colleague from the Bloc, whom I sat at the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development with, and so many others who understand that this is the moment, we need to move forward with asking these questions and putting these types of bills forward to make sure we get the right answers for all Canadians.
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