Statement, Nov 21, 2017: Pollution
Channel: Linda Duncan
Date: 2017-11-21

This government is keen to accept accolades for efforts to combat climate change. 
Regrettably, it has failed to give equal attention to duties to protect transboundary waters and to address injustices suffered by indigenous communities from toxic pollution.
Canada has been chastised by the UN for failing to protect the Peace Athabasca Delta and the indigenous communities who depend on it for their survival.
In approving Site C this government ignored pleas by Alberta First Nations to first assess impacts to their treaty and constitutional rights.  
Successive governments have turned a deaf ear to these communities seeking study of impacts of oil sands emissions on their health - a mandatory duty long vested in the federal minister of health.  
Despite parliamentary reports recommending regulation of oil sands toxic emissions- no action occurs. 
The Lancet report identifies pollution as the greatest global threat to life and health and has decried governments for their failure to address this injustice.
This government has the power and the responsibility to act. Why does it continue to abandon these indigenous communities? 

[Read more about the Lancet study at https://www.news-medical.net/news/20171020/New-report-highlights-global-burden-of-pollution-related-disease-and-death.aspx]