Does Canada need a law to combat environmental racism?

Image: Steve Greenberg

The following is an excerpt from...

Why Canada needs a law to combat environmental racism

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At a time when health and environmental crises dominate the public conversation, Black History Month in February was a stark reminder of the pervasive environmental struggles racialized communities, past and present, disproportionately face.

This month, there may be good news on the horizon. Nova Scotia Liberal MP Lenore Zann has introduced Bill C-230 in the House of Commons, the National Strategy to Redress Environmental Racism Act. It’s scheduled for a March vote.

The historical link between the civil rights and environmental justice movements is widely acknowledged, yet these struggles have become increasingly isolated over time. While environmental laws and regulations have grown exponentially since the NIMBY protests of the 1970s, the concerns of racialized communities have rarely, if ever, been at their forefront.

Instead, environmental governance and zoning regulations have often been deployed against the interests of Black, Indigenous and immigrant communities in North America. Well-known Canadian cases include Ontario’s chemical industry cluster that surrounds the Aamjiwnaang First Nation and Nova Scotia’s hazardous waste siting in historical Africville.

Environmental injustice is just one aspect of the systemic racial discrimination that continues to plague Canada from coast to coast to coast.

In December, researchers Amanda Giang and Kaitlin Castellani from the University of British Columbia published research showing that the cumulative air pollution burden in Canada’s three major cities (Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal) disproportionately affects racialized communities. In Montreal, immigrant residents consistently experience higher cumulative air pollution, while in Toronto, this burden falls on low-income residents. In Vancouver, it’s Indigenous residents. These disparities in exposure to air pollution are just one dimension of the generalized pattern of environmental injustice affecting historically marginalized groups: Indigenous Peoples, racialized newcomers and the urban poor.

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Black History Month - 2021

 

Reproduced from the February, 2021 issue of THE VINCENTIMES

In 1926, African American historian Carter Woodson created Black History Month to heighten awareness of Black history in the United States. Decades later more countries recognized the event by issuing their own proclamations; similarly Canada in the early 1970s observed Black History week. Subsequently in 1995, the Government of Canada officially recognized February as Black History Month following a motion introduced by the first Black Canadian woman elected to Parliament, the Honourable Jean Augustine.

Black History Month is necessary. It is a time for promoting the knowledge, culture and many contributions of Black Canadians. Oftentimes, the role of Black people in Canada has not always been prominently highlighted in Canada’s celebrated history. For example, few Canadians know that black enslavement occurred in Canada, or of how those who fought for their freedom helped to build our diverse and inclusive society.

Likewise, Black Canadians made significant contributions in the First and Second World Wars. The dedicated service of Black servicemen was exemplary and is remembered and celebrated as a cornerstone of the proud tradition of Black military service in our country. Black women also contributed to the war effort by serving in supporting roles so that more men were available for the front lines. Despite a past history that saw Black people bought and sold into slavery and continuing fights against racism, Black Canadians remain strong. Meaningful contributions and accomplishments of Canada’s black community continue to influence every aspect of Canadian life, history and culture.

Black History can and should be celebrated every day through the pursuit of knowledge. Therefore, let’s celebrate this 6th year of the United Nations’ International Decade for People of African Descent.

Did you know...

• Mathieu Da Costa: Navigator and Interpreter, First Black person to arrive in Canada 1600
• Anderson Ruffin Abbott: First Black Canadian doctor in Canada 1837
• Elijah McCoy: Canadian-American inventor and engineer 1843
• William Peyton Hubbard: Canadian politician 1894
• Mary Ann Shadd: First Woman Publisher in North America 1853
• Josiah Henson: Established the Dawn Settlement near Dresden 1841
• Lincoln Alexander: Lieutenant Governor of Ontario 1985
• Michaëlle Jean: Governor General of Canada 2005

Worth Reading:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: In 1951, Henrietta Lacks’s cancer cells, the source of the HeLa cell line, led to major discoveries in medical research.

Systemic Racism Working Group
Valerie Alexander, Member
St. Mary Conference, Tillsonburg

An Invitation to the Margins

 A spiritual reflection on the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time by Carol J. Dempsey, Ph.D., a Dominican Sister from Caldwell, New Jersey and professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Portland, Oregon. 

This spiritual reflection speaks to everyone, but has special relevance for Vincentians.

Published August 29 in the National Catholic Reporter.

Mothers in Portland, Oregon. (CNS/Reuters/Caitlin Ochs)

Global communities have "woke," with voices from the margins shouting, reaching an ear-piercing pitch in the breathtaking struggle against injustice during a worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.

Everywhere people take to the streets, marching in solidarity against racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, gender and orientation discrimination, police brutality and militaristic law enforcement. The margins have had enough! They rise up, once again, and push against the seemingly impenetrable boundaries of hegemonic power that privileges the few and disenfranchises the many.

The margins make their presence known and felt. They expose the myriad of injustices that have plagued, riddled and marred the human community for eons, leaving the web of life tattered, torn and tottering on the threshold of extinction. The margins speak truth to power. They press in on comfort zones. They will not accept being silenced, bullied, pushed aside, discounted any longer. The margins resist.

This Sunday's readings invite everyone to and into the margins, if some of us are not already there.
Read the whole of Sr. Dempsey's reflection here:
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time: Margins speak truth in National Catholic Reporter

Resurrection, Not Resuscitation

Following is an extract from a reflection on last Sunday's readings by Stephen Bevans, SVD and
Louis J. Luzbetak, SVD of the Catholic Theological Union. The Gospel was Matthew 14:13-21, the feeding of the multitude.

It is the generous extravagance and abundance of “the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” that we need to keep in mind in this trying, difficult, almost unbearable time in our lives. We are in that “deserted place” and it is “already late.” If you are like me, it’s not just the COVID-19 pandemic that is terrifying — and that is terrifying enough. It is the racism and hatred that has revealed itself, the shocking individualism that is prolonging the agony of these months, the painful call (for some of us — liberating for others!) to revise our history and our heroes, the dangerous disregard for science and real wisdom that is harming an entire generation. It is the disregard for human lives, especially Black lives today, that is making us pant with thirst. It is a refusal to see the harm we are causing to our planet, and to future generations of plants and animals and human children, that is making us faint with hunger. We desperately need the love of God in Jesus to feed us with hope, with compassion, with patience, with perseverance.

A Canadian View: Black Lives Do Matter - by Jim Paddon

Bishop Mark Seitz and the Roman Catholic Clergy kneeling during a Black Lives Matter demonstration.

Reproduced unchanged from "A Canadian View: Black Lives Do Matter" first published in "famvin".

Jim Paddon lives in London, Ontario, Canada and is past president of the Ontario Regional Council of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. He is currently chair of the National Social Justice Committee of the Society in Canada.

Over 400 years ago Africans were captured and removed from their native lands, homes and families to be taken to the New World and reduced to objects that would assist their owners to have a profitable business and comfortable life for their families. This subjugation of another race which was founded on the principles of someone being inferior and subhuman simply because of their skin colour is one that continues to plague North America. The institution of slavery is one that attempted to rob those affected of their basic human dignity. As has been proven many times by courageous acts of defiance, no one can take away the God given gift of human dignity.