Thank you, Ms. May.

Good afternoon, everyone. I want to thank everyone on the standing committee for inviting me to appear as a witness today. Of course, I want to thank Dr. Waldron for all her work and for allowing me to speak when she was unable to today.

As Ms. May said, my name is Jane McArthur. I'm the toxics program director with the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. I am a settler, here today from my home on the traditional territories of the three fires confederacy of first nations comprised of the Ojibwa, the Odawa and the Potawatomi. This region was also a terminal on the underground railroad network. Today we refer to it as Windsor-Essex, Ontario. In part because of its historical roots, it's still home to many racialized people.

Windsor's history is significant in understanding the present and the bill before us today. The region is known as the auto capital of Canada, a manufacturing hub and the site of the busiest international border crossing in North America, where tens of thousands of transport trucks cross each day. The conditions of my home lead to toxic exposures. The environments where these pollutants are emitted are also places where more racialized people live.

The reality of toxic exposures through air pollution and other means is lived by residents, but often the data to illustrate this is incomplete, in part because Canada does not track racialization and health as some other countries do. When passed, Bill C-226 will be one step toward documenting these realities and also policies and laws to prevent future exposures and the health impacts that are disproportionately experienced by racialized people.

Windsor is only one example of the problem of environmental racism in Canada. As a white settler bringing a relatively high amount of privilege to the table today, the reason I know these truths is that racialized and indigenous people share their experiences of colonization, oppression, environmental racism and ill health.

At CAPE we collaborate with many people sounding the alarm on environmental racism, including Dr. Waldron and the members of the Canadian Coalition for Environmental and Climate Justice; our board member Dr. Ojistoh Horn, a Mohawk and Haudenosaunee woman practising medicine in her community of Akwesasne, living the adverse health impacts of toxic exposures, and the people in her community feeling the same; and my toxics program manager colleague Melissa Daniels, a nurse, lawyer and member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, whose practices, traditions and health are in danger because of tar sands developments.

We know that the groups most impacted by climate change and environmental hazards are indigenous, racialized and otherwise vulnerabilized people. The toxic burdens faced by racialized communities are linked to high rates of cancer, reproductive diseases, respiratory illnesses and a myriad of other health problems. This alarm was sounded long ago by indigenous and racialized communities who have lived and died from the impacts of environmental racism and toxic exposures, but these people have been structurally excluded from decision-making, with their concerns ignored, downplayed and justified in the name of economic progress.

From the impacts of fracking operations in northern British Columbia to pulp mill effluent in Pictou Landing First Nation’s boat harbour, toxic landfills in African Nova Scotian communities, mercury contamination in Grassy Narrows First Nation, and exposures from petrochemical facilities by Aamjiwnaang First Nation people in the chemical valley in Ontario, the legacy of environmental racism can no longer be ignored.

The strategy created with the passage of Bill C-226 will be an important starting point for addressing a phenomenon that should never have occurred and must be ended.

Thank you.

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