Movement makes case for right to healthy environment

This Monday, Camrose city council will be hearing from a group of citizens hoping the city will joinmunicipalities across the country in passing a declaration recognizing the right to fresh air, cleanwater and healthy food.

The Blue Dot Movement is a project of the David Suzuki Foundation that has been sparkinggrassroots initiatives in communities across the country to push for recognition of the right to ahealthy environment. As more and more municipalities join, the hope is that there will be support toinfluence provincial declarations, and, once a majority of seven provinces sign on, the right to ahealthy environment could be incorporated into the Canadian constitution.

"This idea of cherishing the blue dot, I really believe that starts with cherishing our local area,"Rajan Rathnavalu told an audience at a Camrose Wildlife Stewardship Society presentation at theStoney Creek Centre. "A sense of caring for a place, being affected by a place and wanting to carefor it, is at the heart of what the blue dot initiative is about."

Blue Dot Camrose began when a few of its members travelled to Edmonton last fall to hear DavidSuzuki give what they found to be an inclusive and positive message.

"In the past we've tended to focus on the doom and gloom," said Ryan Lindsay. "The idea of themovement is to start together and find things that we all can agree on, things that we can celebrate:clean air, clean water, fresh food. Those are all good things that we have and value, and we want topreserve that."

Margaret Rathnavalu grew up on a farm 10 miles south of Camrose with seemingly unlimited accessto clean water.

"I guess I never thought, ever, that we would start to think, 'Is our water safe?' 'Is there going to beenough for our children's children?' So this movement has really made me appreciate what we haveand where we'd like to go," she said.

"What does a right to a healthy environment mean?" asked Rathnavalu. "Clean water, air, healthyfood - these are things that we take for granted, that we expect for ourselves, and it makes sense ina reflection of our values to protect them in the highest laws."

Roughly 181 of about 190 countries worldwide recognize, to some degree, environmental rights.

What Canadians might find surprising is that Canada is among about 12 countries that don't, alongwith the U.S., China and Australia.

Norway, for example, has embedded the following into its constitution:

"Every person has a right to an environment that is conducive to health and to natural surroundingwhose productivity and diversity are preserved. Natural resources should be made use of on thebasis of comprehensive long term consideration whereby this right will be safeguarded for futuregenerations as well."

Implications to recognizing environmental rights include citizens holding governments to account,maintaining the right to participate in decision that affect them at the level of their own health andaccessing environmental justice.

Rathnavalu named several examples of how this plays out in countries that recognize these rights:

o A mining company wanted to work an open pit cold mine in a Columbian watershed that makes uptwo per cent of country but over 50 per cent of citizen's drinking water. Because of the strength oftheir environmental protection, the company was denied.

o France instituted environmental rights in 2001 to overwhelming support. Now no pesticides areused on public land, and every new commercial building is built with a green energy roof.

o In Argentina, a woman took 44 companies and the government to court because she and otherresidents of a toxic neighbourhood were getting sick. Now the government spends $1 billion plusannually to clean it up.

o Chevron was fined $170 million to clean up an oil spill off Brazil, more than every fine in everyCanadian jurisdiction ever; a similar oil spill off the coast of Newfoundland resulted in a fine of a fewhundred thousand.

"When it's embedded in the constitution, it allows stronger enforcement of laws and the passing ofstronger laws," said Rathnavalu.

In Canada, hundreds of communities, mostly indigenous, are on boil-water advisories and don't haveaccess to safe drinking water. A recent Alberta study projected that air pollution costs an extra $300million in healthcare costs.

"According to the World Health Organization, tens of thousands of people die in Canada prematurelydue to air pollution and other toxins released into the environment, producing billions of dollars inextra health costs," said Rathnavalu.

Yet, surveys find that between 85 and 90 per cent of Canadians agree that the environment shouldbe a part of our basic rights, and a majority thought it was already embedded in constitution.

Major cities like Vancouver, Victoria, Hamilton and Montreal - 64 municipal governments across thecountry in total - have passed declarations recognizing the right to fresh air, clean water, andhealthy food.

The Camrose Blue Dot group will be presenting a similar, non-legally-binding document to citycouncil at its Committee of the Whole meeting at City Hall at 2 p.m. on July 13. Councillors BillSears, Agnes Hoveland , Kevin Hycha and PJ Stasko have been present at Blue Dot events and haveencouraged the group to put forward a document for council to consider.

"We're hoping that it's an ethos that will support ongoing initiatives and bolster them," saidRathnavalu. "There's many, many things that Camrose and county are already doing, and this is away of clarifying and declaring that commitment, and then providing energy for other things to goforward.

"We don't see ourselves as pioneers or innovators, we're simply a part of a community that is caringalready for our land and water."

Visit Blue Dot Camrose on Facebook for more information.

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