Hon. Marilou McPhedran: Honourable senators, hello, bonjour, tansi.

As a senator for Manitoba, I acknowledge that I live on Treaty 1 territory, the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji‑Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation.

I acknowledge that the Parliament of Canada is situated on unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin Anishinaabe territory.

[English]

I rise today to speak in support of Bill C-226, introduced in the other place by Member of Parliament Elizabeth May, Co-leader of the Green Party of Canada, and sponsored here by my esteemed Manitoba colleague Senator M.J. McCallum.

Honourable senators, it is heartening to note that this is one of the rare private member’s bills that received government support, as you heard when Senator Gold spoke in favour earlier this week.

It is my hope that I can best voice my support for this bill — which asks the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to develop a national strategy to counter environmental racism — by noting the ways in which passage of this bill will bring Canada more into alignment with existing international obligations including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Let us recall that apologies have been issued by Canada to Indigenous peoples, and now we must see actions to match. Bill C-226 could well galvanize such actions.

Having reviewed other contributions to this debate, the international context has certainly been mentioned, but I hope it will be helpful if I add some more detail to this aspect of why Bill C-226 is so deserving of our support.

Allow me to begin to observe why alignment with and implementation of our international human rights obligations is important and relevant to this bill on countering environmental racism.

To quote the Institute for Research on Public Policy just yesterday:

While Canada has long had a stellar reputation internationally for protecting human rights, our domestic track record is more dismal than that reputation would suggest. Time and again, decision-makers have failed to implement United Nations human rights treaties and recommendations at home on issues including the rights of Indigenous peoples, racism, gender equality, refugees and migrants, disability, housing, law enforcement and corporate accountability.

At the core of Canada ratifying any international rights treaty is our constitutionally entrenched commitment to equality rights, as well as the practical outcome that people in Canada can not only know and claim their rights, but — through implementation — they can also live their rights.

In the international context, Canada has recognized various human rights implicated by hazardous substances and wastes through its ratification or accession of seven United Nations human rights treaties. Under these treaties, Canada has specific obligations. These obligations, assumed voluntarily by Canada in signing and ratifying such treaties, clearly set out commitments to protect, respect and fulfill universal human rights, including the right to life and dignity; health; security of the person and bodily integrity; safe food and water; adequate housing; and safe and healthy working conditions.

Canada has specific obligations regarding the human rights of all people in Canada — all underpinned by protection from discrimination. These rights and obligations combine to create a duty for Canada to counter environmental racism.

In Bill C-226, we see a practical, measured way for Canada to take some big steps forward in bringing Canada more into alignment with existing international human rights obligations.

With the bill’s short title, national strategy respecting environmental racism and environmental justice act, it is set out in this bill that the national strategy must include measures to examine the link between race, socio-economic status and environmental risk; collect information and statistics relating to the location of environmental hazards; collect information and statistics relating to negative health outcomes in communities that have been affected by environmental racism; and assess the administration and enforcement of environmental laws in each province. It must also include measures to address environmental racism in relation to possible amendments to federal laws, policies and programs; the involvement of community groups in environmental policy-making; compensation for individuals or communities; ongoing funding for affected communities; and the access of affected communities to clean air and water.

In his 2020 report on Canada, the UN Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes — after visiting a number of racialized communities, and meeting with government representatives in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec — noted:

Canada has obligations regarding the rights to information, participation, access to justice and remedies, and specific obligations regarding the rights of Indigenous peoples, children, different genders, workers, minorities, migrants, and persons with disabilities, among other vulnerable groups . . . .

Together, these rights and obligations create a duty for Canada to prevent exposure to toxic and otherwise hazardous substances. The only way to protect against violations of the above human rights is to prevent exposure. . . . However, businesses have critical responsibilities to prevent exposure as well.

To respect my time boundaries today, I’ll limit references to former UN special rapporteur Baskut Tuncak in his report on Canada, but I do want to note that he acknowledged that Canada has ratified all international chemicals and wastes treaties, and is in the process of moving toward adhering to the Basel Ban Amendment to the Basel Convention, which Canada adopted in 1992, with the primary objective of protecting human health and environments from the adverse effects of waste. If Canada respects and implements the Basel Ban Amendment, hazardous waste can no longer be exported to other countries from Canada.

The UN special rapporteur also noted numerous concerns; for example, he noted the “jurisdictional quagmire” faced by Indigenous peoples — where reserves often fall between the cracks of federal and provincial jurisdiction, posing a risk for unregulated exposures. For example, throughout Canada, provincial drinking water quality standards are not applicable on reserves, and federal standards are not legally binding, as they have yet to be set. As stated by the UN special rapporteur, “Jurisdictional separation is not an excuse for shortcomings by the Government in taking prompt action to address toxic exposures.”

He also noted:

. . . marginalized groups, and Indigenous peoples in particular, find themselves on the wrong side of a toxic divide, subject to conditions that would not be acceptable elsewhere in Canada.

Honourable colleagues, environmental racism has two main components: distributive spatial injustice and procedural injustice. The first is concerned primarily with the inequitable location of industrial polluters and other environmentally hazardous projects, and the second focuses on institutional mechanisms and policies that perpetuate inequitable distribution of those activities.

Close to home for me, year after year, Indigenous leaders in Manitoba present well-documented actions of Manitoba Hydro that — as they have noted — show how these two components of injustice operate in systemic ways to the detriment and, far too often, the destruction of First Nations communities.

According to Wa Ni Ska Tan, an alliance of Manitoba First Nations:

Manitoba Hydro has profited for over a hundred years at the expense of its First Nation partners. It pushes for the development of devastating hydroelectric mega projects to make millions of dollars exporting power to the United States, and Indigenous communities pay the price a thousand times over. New partnerships . . . are more of the same, with communities being saddled with millions of dollars in debt — on top of cultural and environmental costs — for a generating station that provides little or no economic benefit.

Colleagues, there is a cruel irony in the fact that many First Nations families report high electricity bills — often upward of $500 per month. This seems particularly unfair, as the power is generated from their now-destroyed ancestral lands.

In short, in Manitoba, Indigenous traditional livelihoods and ways of being are often undermined or destroyed by environmental racism. For example, Senator McCallum has spoken here about the negative impact of “man camps” — how the influx of external workers for hydroelectric developments can lead to increased sexual exploitation, substance abuse and social disruption, exacerbated by incidents marked by racism and sexism that have led to violence and loss.

In concluding his report on Canada, the UN special rapporteur made a number of recommendations that are addressed positively in Bill C-226. I will note one that relates directly to the adoption of this bill: “Establish a sound environmental justice framework based on the principles of procedural justice, geographic justice, and social justice . . . .”

Colleagues, given the importance of the issues discussed, and being conscious of how time will become more limited for non‑government bills as we navigate the precious — and pressured — final weeks before we rise in June, I now invite your active support for this bill. Let’s send it to committee for continued study as soon as we possibly can.

Thank you. Meegwetch.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)

[Translation]

The Senate proceeded to consideration of the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration, entitled Amendments to the Senate Administrative Rules, presented in the Senate on May 16, 2023.