LETTER

 

An environmental bill of rights?

 

I'm concerned about the future of Canada's water and about the current state of our laws around its safety.

 

The government needs to make the right to a healthy environment a top priority. More than 80 per cent of the Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality relate to chemical contaminants, but provide less protection for public health than other industrialized nations. On any given day, more than 1,000 boil-water advisories are in effect across the country, many in Indigenous communities. Places like Shoal Lake 40, Grassy Narrows and Neskantaga have been under boil-water advisories for decades.

 

More than 20,000 Canadians die prematurely every year because of exposure to environmental hazards, and the total cost of pollution in Canada is more than $100 billion a year. We can't afford not to take action.

More than 120 communities, representing more than 12 million Canadians, have passed environmental rights declarations at the local level. It’s time for the federal government to take action and implement the right to clean water in Canada by passing an environmental bill of rights that respects, protects and fulfils our right to a healthy environment, including the right to clean water.

 

Andrea Sternberg
Ottawa