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Science Matters - Environmental deficit tarnishes Canada’s record

Many Canadians see our country as a human rights leader, but a United Nations committee says we should do better.

Many Canadians see our country as a human rights leader, but a United Nations committee says we should do better. In early March, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights concluded that Canada’s lack of environmental protection and climate action mars our rights record.

The committee’s periodic review of Canada put our country’s commitment to providing basic necessities under the spotlight. Although the review’s authors commended Canada for several progressive steps, including the recently announced national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, they expressed concern about the systematic lack of action on homelessness, poverty, access to food and other important obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Their recommendations on environmental protection and climate change policy were especially noteworthy. Although it’s evident that a healthy environment is the foundation of human rights to food, water, health and livelihood, the committee’s decision to push Canada to pursue renewable energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and establish stronger environmental regulations illustrates the growing global recognition of the link between environmental and human rights.

This recognition may be just emerging in international human rights law, but it’s nothing new to Indigenous people and many others who directly depend on nature for food and livelihood.

I heard this over and over again this past summer as I travelled with a team along Canada’s vast Pacific coast, visiting a dozen communities in the traditional territories of 12 First Nations. These people reside along 26,000  kilometres of British Columbia’s winding shoreline — home to trillions of plankton, billions of fish, millions of seabirds and thousands of whales, which live among forests of kelp and eelgrass, along underwater canyons and glass sponge reefs. 

During the tour, we were welcomed with feasts that embodied the intersection of nature, food and culture, and we conducted more than 1,500 profoundly moving interviews with coastal residents. They expressed fears about threats to their way of life, including industrial projects that will catastrophically affect the environment and their livelihoods being approved with little or no consultation. They spoke passionately about the connection between a healthy environment and economic, cultural and social rights — because they live it every day.

One Pacific coast resident said, “When the fish come home or pass by Campbell River this whole community comes alive. Without the fish, a large piece of our island culture goes with them.” This year marks the 50th anniversary of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Canada has the opportunity to mark the milestone by legally protecting all Canadians’ environmental rights and by recognizing that healthy oceans are a necessary condition for human health and dignity.

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

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