Thank you, Ms. Collins.

Thank you, Ms. May.

I'd like to point back to something Dr. Waldron said when she was speaking in the debate on Bill C-230. One thing she said around that problem, at that time, was that she felt we needed to do more education about what racism is and what environmental racism is, because she was concerned there is a real lack of understanding about this phenomenon being a reality. She pointed to the fact that, in Canada, we like to think that no racism exists here, which she said is "ridiculous”, in her words.

It does exist. Racism often exists in subtle and in very overt ways. We're seeing that in the mapping done and the health impacts being experienced. I think that, when we talk about different intersections and vulnerabilities, we're capable of recognizing oppression and that certain people are vulnerablized. With that lens, it shouldn't be so difficult for us to understand that racism and environmental racism exist in Canada.

We're in a moment where we're reconciling, or supposed to be reconciling, with our past and the ongoing present legacy of colonization of first nations people who live on these lands today. We need to be very concertedly acknowledging this. That's our first step—to acknowledge that this is a reality. Within that reality, we need to take steps to remediate that.

Part of this strategy, as Ms. May pointed out, is the inclusion of the affected people in rolling out the strategy in this bill. Consultation, and free, prior and informed consent, as have already been mentioned.... The communities affected are often not understood through traditional research lenses and methodologies of gathering information. This is, in part, because we're not asking the right questions about what their experiences are. The invisibilization of racism is part of the problem of not being able to gather the right kinds of information to show us the problem.

I think that, really and truly, if we lack some of this understanding and education.... This is an important part of what this bill will do: highlight the fact that this is a reality. We're not necessarily looking in the right places for the right pieces of data, or listening to the right people for the information we need and for evidence that shows this is a problem.

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