 Good afternoon everyone and welcome to a new health law seminar I think people are. Oh, I think I was saying people are still trickling game but I think we're going to get started with the introductions and people can still join. My name is Adelina if then I am the associate director of the health law Institute at the house the university. And it is my great pleasure to introduce today. Dr. Ingrid Waldron, she will be talking about troubled waters and the health and mental health impacts on environmental racism. So a very important topic today. And I am looking forward to the talk and to the discussion. Before I introduce Dr. Waldron, I want to point out a couple of housekeeping rules. So we have live closed captioning you're going to see that in your corner right. At least that's what it is for me. So just make sure to turn it on if you wish to use it. Also, you're going to see on the on the bar. There is a Q&A box so I'm going to ask that any questions that you have please type them in there and I am going to put them to Dr. Waldron after her after her talk. Without further ado, I'm just going to introduce Dr. Waldron. She's the professor and hope chair in peace and health in the global peace and social justice program in the faculty of humanities at McMaster University. And actually from 2008 to 2021. Dr. Waldron was a professor in the faculty of health at the house university. So very strong connection to us. Dr. Waldron's research teaching and community advocacy work focused on environmental racism, climate justice, mental illness, COVID-19, and the structural and environmental determinant of health disparities in black indigenous communities and in refugee communities. Dr. Waldron is the founder and director of the environmental nauseousness, racially inequities and community health project, the Enrich project, which inspired the federal private member bills a national strategy respecting environmental racism and environmental justice which is bill C230. Her Netflix documentary there's something in the water is based on her book of the same name and was co-produced by Waldron actor Elliot Page, Ian Daniel and Julia Sanderson. Dr. Waldron is also the co-founder of the Canadian Coalition for environmental and climate justice, which has brought together organizations in the environmental climate and social justice sectors to share expertise and resources to address environmental racism, climate change and other social injustices in black indigenous and other racialized communities across Canada. So we are very lucky to have Dr. Waldron here with us to talk about her work on the impact of environmental injustice and racism on health. Thank you very much, Adelina. Thanks to everyone for being here. Okay, here we go. Okay, so I'd like to begin with a quote by 20 something environmental activist Vanessa Gray, who's an Amgenwong First Nation near Sarnia, Ontario, and Vanessa says the land is our mother. So when we lose value for the land. People lose value for the women. Indigenous and black women have been building grassroots environmental and social justice movements for decades to challenge the legal, political and corporate agendas that sanction and enable environmental racism and other forms of colonial violence in their communities. Colonial gendered violence continues today and includes the crisis of missing and murdered women. The displacement of indigenous peoples from their lands by corporate resource extraction projects, anti black and anti indigenous police violence and other forms of state sanctioned violence. Colonization and genocide are tied to the intersections of indigenous lands and bodies. Women experience violence because they are the ones that are responsible for taking care of the land and holding it for future generations. Therefore, gendered violence that harms women specifically also harms nations, making it much easier to take possession of the land. Indigenous women specifically production and reproduction land and life and resistance and survival are all intimately connected. There is no separation. Therefore, the indigenous role in fighting against environmental racism by defending their land and territory and protecting their water are acts of resistance against gender depression. This was a question that was posed to me often when I was in Halifax back in 2012 when I started my project on environmental racism. A lot of people were not aware of the term and they thought that the term was peculiar. So in order to kind of explain the term environmental racism, I always pull up this slide with James Desmond. James Desmond is a long time environmental activist in the African Nova Scotian community of Lincolnville and in 2013, because my project is community based I wanted to meet the communities I wanted to drive down to their communities and meet with them and get a sense from them what my, how my research should look what should my research objectives be what should my research questions be which is not typically what academics do typically we decide on those things and then we put it through to ethics. But I wanted to hear from them I wanted to get a sense of their priorities. And I filmed the workshops, and we filmed James and we asked him if he could define environmental racism. And this is how James defined it he says that practice has been locating industrial way sites next to African Nova Scotian native and poor white communities communities that don't have a base to fight back. You ask if that's environmental racism. It's environmental racism to its core. And the reason I like this definition is because it's very simple. But at the same time it's extremely layered and it has all or most of the components of the definition of environmental racism in it. For example, when he, when he highlights African Nova Scotian native and poor white communities. He is saying that the communities that are disproportionately selected for the siting of harmful industries tend to be communities that are non white or racialized. He's also saying that it could include white communities as well it's not as often but you know I think of Nova Scotia and I think of Harriet's field Harriet's field is a low income I believe rural white community that has been trying to address water since I think the 1980s and I know that the East Coast Environmental Law Association and how that has been supporting that community so you know environmental racism certainly can include white communities. The definition also highlights an interest the need for an intersectional analysis on this particular issue. When I started the project people approached me and they said, Well, is this really about class. You know why, why are you making it about race, it's really about class. And I would respond by saying why can't it be about race and class and gender and geography and culture, right so it's very much we very much need an intersectional analysis when we when we talk about environmental racism the communities that are impacted are less typically low income dealing with income insecurity and other structural inequities, but they're also at the same time racialized. And they also live in rural, in the case of African Nova Scotians isolated communities and on reserves right so communities that are far away from the minds of politicians often these are typically communities that don't get to be heard, they have been fighting for a long time and they've certainly tried to make their voices heard so when you look at those intersections of race and social class and education and living in out of the way places then you can understand why these are communities that oftentimes lack political social and economic clout. And when you don't have social political and economic cloud, then yes it's much more difficult to have your voices heard and to have government act on these issues in a timely manner. So, you know when he says they don't have a base to fight back he's basically saying that they don't have political cloud economic cloud social cloud, making it much more difficult for them to resist the sighting of industries in their communities. So I want to give you a more academic definition of environmental racism this comes from Dr Robert Bullard, who is considered to be the father of environmental justice that he teaches in Texas. And he says that environmental racism is racial discrimination in the disproportionate location and greater exposure of indigenous racialized communities to contamination and pollution and this is basically what James Desmond just said. You know, as I said James talked about disproportionality, certain communities are disproportionately cited for our disproportionately selective for the sighting of harmful industry so what we often see is a spatial patterning of industry in certain communities. The second aspect of the definition is a lack of political power as James also mentioned in many ways these communities have resisting the placement of industrial polluters, because of all the things I said earlier intersections of race, class socio economic status geography are your residents in rural or out of the way places or on reserves. It's also about the implementation of policies that sanction the harmful and in many cases life threatening poisons in these communities so when we see the spatial patterning of industry and certain communities primarily racialized communities across Canada and in Nova Scotia. It's, it doesn't just happen. It's a result of policy specifically environmental policies and even more specifically environmental assessments. These are tools that are used to decide where a particular project gets placed. And ultimately the projects as I said end up in racialized communities so when we think about why this is happening the root cause would be the implementation of policies that have been developed for example in departments of environment across Canada that allow these industries to be cited in certain communities. And then we have the disproportionate negative impacts of environmental policies that result in differential rates of cleanup so when you think of, for example peak to landing first nation and why it took over 40 years for the government to act on a boat harbor or the contamination of boat harbour boat harbour. This is what is meant by this particular definition of environmental racism that there's differential clean ups and sometimes when you are a member of a lower socioeconomic class or you are racialized, you find that the rate of cleanup is very different from communities that are higher income, or members of the elite class right you can see distinctions in terms of how government responds how they act, how quickly they act. So that's when you have to kind of ask why does it take so long for certain communities to get action on their issues. And finally the history of excluding indigenous and racialized communities from mainstream environmental groups decision making boards commissions and regulatory bodies. In other words, the people who are most impacted by environmental racism are the people who are not invited to the table. These are not the people that you see at the table. These are not the people who are making decisions. These are not the people who are developing policies. And when we don't include or invite people who are most impacted then, then environmental racism manifests over time it continues to happen. Intergenerationally, because we're not hearing from people who are impacted we're not hearing about their perspectives we're not hearing about their priorities you're not hearing about how they would like to see clean up what happened right so it's not coming from a community voice, and then it continues over time and that's why we see in Canada, for example, or in Nova Scotia or Canada that environmental racism, or there's been a legacy of environmental racism over the past, I would say 70 years. When you think of Shelburne which has had a dump since 1943. I just want to kind of provide you with the UK studies on environmental racism across Canada beginning with Nova Scotia, of course. This is Doreen Bernard, and her community, so back in agony first nation has been fighting the migration gas brine discharge pipeline project since about 2014 and they've engaged in a number of activities on online and onsite at the treaty truck house to help this project. I'm very content that proper consultations were not done with the community there were some indigenous communities that were consulted but their community was not consulted, and they did not get prior informed consent. In 2016, then environment Minister Margaret Miller said that consultations do not need to be done consultations have been done properly. No further consultations are required. In March, the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia disagreed with her and ordered the province to consult with this community for 120 days this was a major achievement in March of last year because this is something that this community has been seeking for time I really admired this community because of the fact that they've all did this project for almost seven years by engaging in various kind of acts of resistance. But then there was good news as you probably of course you know your Nova Scotia last week was it last week or this week. I think it was this week that the project has been canceled. So major achievement for this for this community. There is a boat harbor. It's a very contaminated site. Since 1967, northern help mill has been dumping effluent into boat harbor, and over the years particularly perhaps in the 1980s more specifically there's been a lot of kind of pushback by by the community, asking the government to close the mail etc and there was a lot of broken promises over the past 30 years the government promising to close the mill but that never happening. And then in 2015 a decision was made that in five years, it would close and I believe the government in Nova Scotia was asking the, the mill to to provide them with an environmental assessment that was robust. And that came to him last or in 2019 and he said that it wasn't done very well and that it wasn't robust enough and we can continue to make broken promises to this community and we need to close the mill. And he made that announcement the week of Christmas in 2019. And as you know as Nova Scotians there was a lot of friction, anger people lost their jobs. And because of the community because letting first nation was threatened with bodily harm including Chief Andrea Paul and her daughter and you know so it wasn't a really good time around February, January of 2020. But the mill did close. At the end of January 2020, however, and then cleanup was supposed to happen. I'm hearing that cleanup has not been going well so I do want to find out a little bit more about that so maybe I'll contact Michelle Francis Danny about that because she was very much involved in this particular issue she's moved on I know but I'm hearing cleanup isn't going well. Maybe some of you know a little bit more than I do. So that Amgen Wang First Nation on the screen, I consider this to be one of the worst cases of environmental racism in Canada, along with Boat Harbor. So this is a community it's often referred to as chemical valley. So once again Amgen Wang First Nation I'm not sure if I'm saying that correctly. So this is Arnea, Ontario. And this is a stunning, I think a stunning example of environmental racism when you have over 60 petrochemical facilities surrounding this community within a 25 square kilometer area. Like all the communities that I've gotten to know. So they have to contend with significant health problems, because of this reproductive illnesses they'll talk about this later but a lot of health issues like the communities that I'm that I've come to know in Nova Scotia. So this is a, this is, this is one of the worst if not the worst case of environmental racism in Canada in terms of how long it's been going on but just the spatial the clustering of industry so close to the, to the community and to have over 60 petrochemical facilities surrounding the community is, is to me shameful. I've actually heard of grassy narrows First Nation. This is near Canora, Ontario, and they've long been concerned about mercury contamination there was clean up I believe a few years ago, yes, millions of dollars provided to the cleanup, however, you know, one thing that I often say is that even when there's clean up or dump is closed, the health effects remain right so the community still has to deal with the health effects so yes there's clean up but there's still a lot of concerns about Merck, the link between mercury contamination and various illnesses including cancer. And I would say over the past four years, the community that has gone a lot of attention is what's to it in First Nation in BC. So mass demonstrations sit ins and blockades have gripped parts of Canada over the movement to support the leaders of what's to it in First Nation who are opposed to this multi billion dollar pipeline project in northern BC. A lot of people don't realize that there are black communities impacted by environmental racism and as you are in Nova Scotia you will of course know about Africa bill. Africa bill for me is both an example of environmental racism and gentrification or if you want to call it urban renewal. Some people don't like those terms, particularly urban renewal some people would say what are you renewing. This is a case of expropriation of a community government city of Halifax trying to make way for industrial development in the early 1960s and they needed the community to move out so the community was pushed out or expropriated and moved into other areas. I believe the church was burnt down as well at night and some community members were actually moved out on dump trucks. To me the expropriation of African Nova Scotians from Africa bill is kind of an example of Nova Scotia's shameful past. So this was as I said amidst an urban renewal campaign. As the government was making way for industrial development, what was left in its wake were a number of social and environmental hazards and this is why I say this is also in addition to being an example of gentrification it's also an example of environmental racism. So the social and environmental hazards included a fertilizer plant, a slaughterhouse, a tar factory, a stone and coal crushing plant, a cotton factory, a prison, three systems of railway tracks and an open dump. While this community is no longer the descendants are here obviously and descendants have been rising up over the past several years in 2016. 2016 they requested a class action lawsuit, but that was thrown out in 2018 and not sure what's happening since then but I do know that the community has been engaged in a lot of demonstrations, including late last year, where there was a march, I believe to province from the park near Africa bill or in Africa bill to province house so this and then there was a there was a online and kind of yeah there was a GoFundMe page as well and petitions I believe so the community is still very much active in seeking specifically reparations from the fallout of expropriation many of them lost their homes as they were moved into other areas so they're seeking reparations. So perhaps an apology although an apology was made in 2011 by the mayor at that time in Nova Scotia, but a lot of people weren't satisfied with it and of course the Africa bill museum was part of that apology and a lot of people are not happy about the apology they wanted a little bit more so they're kind of two sides, I guess, some African Nova Scotian descendants of Africa bill happy with the museum and others feeling that that wasn't enough they want more. We have Lincolnville I showed you a photo of James Desmond earlier he provided a definition of environmental racism this is Lincolnville. I traveled as I said to Lincolnville in 2013 and my research assistant took this photo when we went there. They've had a dump in their community since 1974. And then in 2006, a second generation landfill was put on top of the first generation landfill so of course they're very very concerned about contamination contamination from the landfills and over the over time, their community has also gathered together have formed an NGO or group I think it's the Lincolnville or the name of their group they changed the name of it but they've been engaged in a lot of marches and protests requesting that the government meet with them over the years and I think one of the things that they wanted is to have this landfill redirected. I don't personally think it's going to happen but just through my enriched project I've tried to support the community in other ways because I don't think this landfill will ever be redirected but like the other communities, high rates of cancer they would say that is connected to this landfill. Then we have Shelburne. Shelburne, the African Nova Scotian community in Shelburne has had a landfill since 1943. I typically use the formal name of this landfill which is the Morvan Road landfill, but the community says this is the Shelburne town dump. I often say to me, Ingrid you're using the term landfill that's way too polite. This is not a landfill this is a dump because a landfill tends to be controlled, and a dump well is not controlled and basically everything and anything went into this, this dump, starting in 1943 including stuff from the military base, to the hospitals like syringes and everything else. So it wasn't a controlled landfill therefore I guess it's a dump. What was great is that I met the environmental activist Louise Deleel from this community in December of 2015 I wanted to hire her to do some focus groups in her community about the about the health effects of the dump. She told me when I first met with her that about 90% of the people in her community have cancer. And I thought well that's not likely that can't be. It sounded very strange to me but you know since I've known her over the past what six years, you know, the amount of time she she reaches out to tell me that somebody else has died in her community from cancer I find it quite stunning. And I also remember reading an article a while ago about cancer alley in Louisiana in the United States this is an African American community that's surrounded by chemical facilities and they call it cancer alley and almost everybody has cancer so it's not, it's not, it is, it's highly probable likely that there's a connection certainly between the dump and cancer, high rates of cancer in Shelburne and specifically multiple myeloma there are high rates of cancer, or sorry, high rates of multiple myeloma which is a blood cancer in Shelburne. One of the things I never say as a researcher is I never say definitively yes, because you have to be cautious right to make those changes but the community is certainly certain about this that there's a link. What's what's great and it's a great achievement in this community is that after Louise did the focus groups, the community formed an NGO called the South End Environmental Injustice Society and they succeeded in getting the land, the dump closed at 2016. So major achievement however once again, the health effects remain. They're still concerned about the health effects. So I talked a lot about health. And there is a term in the environmental justice literature to talk about health disparities with respect to toxic burdens and that term is environmental health and inequities. And there are a lot of doubters particularly in government but other people who do doubt the link between cancer and a toxic site. But over the past 20 years in Canada, there has been a literature looking at the connections between toxic burdens and health. Environmental health inequities across racial dimensions have been well documented in the literature in Canada, which has provided strong evidence that Indigenous Black and other racialized communities are exposed to greater health risk compared to other communities because they're more likely to be spatially clustered around waste disposal sites and other environmental hazards. Some of these issues are gastrointestinal diseases, cancer I talked about earlier, rare cancers, respiratory illness. There's some literature now showing the connection between autism and environmental toxins. But I also like to put a kind of gendered lens on this when I talk about environmental health inequities. And that's when, you know, earlier I talked about the need to have an intersectional analysis when we talk about environmental racism, but particularly when we talked about the health effects of environmental racism because we know that based on your gender you're going to experience the health effects of toxins in very different ways. So I just want to highlight the experiences of women, of Indigenous women specifically and I see environmental racism as operating. And if I go back to the beginning of my lecture when I talked about gendered colonialism, operating as a specific form of colonial racialized and gendered violence, in the way that it impacts the bodies and well being and health of Indigenous and Black women. And one of the most insidious ways in which environmental racism impacts Indigenous and Black women is through the detrimental health effects of toxic contaminants on their reproductive health, including high levels of toxins and breast milk and placenta for blood as well as infertility, miscarriages, premature births, premature menopause, reproductive system cancers, and an inability to produce healthy children due to compromised endocrine and immune systems while in utero. I think the literature often, what's absent in the literature is the psychological impacts of environmental racism, something that I'm interested in looking at and I've started to look at that. I did a workshop earlier this year in Shelburne, Nova Scotia where we looked specifically at the mental health impacts of environmental racism. We need to think about environmental stress, we need to think about the psychosocial stressors related to living or knowing you're living there to a dump for many reasons you know and I think of Mary Desmond in Lincolnville who said to me back in 2013 I don't drink the water, I just drink bottled water, my husband drank the water and now he's dead. Or I think of Louise Delio during a press conference I held with the environment East Coast Environmental Law Association in 2017, where Louise said, not only are we black and poor, but people see us as the dump, because we live near the dump. And she talks often about how this has impacted the self esteem of people in Shelburne and particularly young people. So we do need to think about psychosocial stressors and the health impacts of living near to dumps and what that does to communities and their self esteem. I want to talk finally about some of the activities I've engaged in through the environmental noxiousness racial inequities and community health project the enriched project over the years I started this project in 2012. I was an environmental activist who had been really engaged in Lincolnville and other communities in Nova Scotia and he was leaving to live in Oakland California and he wanted to make sure that all the work that activists had done over the years would be sustained in some areas. He chose me I don't know why he chose me, because I often tell people I was not in this field at all. I was in health but I knew absolutely nothing about the environment. And in many ways I'm still playing catch up, you know, because this was not my field it wasn't my PhD. This came to me late in my career. But I felt I could bring something to it as a sociologist because I am a sociologist of race and ethnicity and a health researcher I look at the health impacts of racism and I thought okay I can bring something to this even though I'm not an expert. I'm not an environmental scientist for example. So I went about it my way and I said like this needs to be community based. This needs to be from the perspectives of community members, but because I noticed in Nova Scotia that a lot of people were asking me well I've never heard of this term what is environmental racism isn't it about class and not raised I said well I need to do awareness raising. And I did a lot of that in Nova Scotia over the years to just, you know workshops and public engagement this is a, this is an event. This is an event actually ever that I held at the central library in Nova Scotia in 2015 I just love this about we had, we had drummers. We had indigenous African drummers it was, it was uplifting but it was educational is informative. It was packed you know we had a lot of people. And we had people here as you see on the screen from different perspectives they were just really my favorite event of all time. I continue to do that now because I'm always meeting people who say I, I don't know what this is I've never heard of this term, not really in Nova Scotia I think in Nova Scotia, compared to other parts of Canada, I think a lot of people in Nova Scotia know this term now environmental racism but when I travel to other parts of Canada they would say I don't know I have never heard of this it's a peculiar term. Raising awareness is great because it raises awareness, but I've also found that raising awareness also gets people to act of course right because if people don't know about an issue they're not going to empathize on the issue and if they don't empathize on the issue then they're not going to act. And when I hold my events, what what typically has happened is that people attend it they email me they said they say to me I've never heard of this I can't believe this is in my backyard I'm from Nova Scotia. They're saying, please tell me what I can do that that was always happening when I was in Nova Scotia and then I get people who want to volunteer, which of course for faculty members great because there are times when I don't have a branch. Right, so you get people who are enthusiastic particularly young people particularly students students like yourselves, who just say I want to help in any way. Yeah that's really this inspired me this event and I want to do something. So for me that's why events have been really important to create kind of sense of empathy and action around the issue. As a faculty member of course I have to publish. It's part of my job but it's also important to publish because of course policymakers like data, and they want to see research on the issue. They like, they like statistical research they like quantitative research but they also like stories, and I'm mostly a qualitative researcher although I do some mixed methods studies but I like to share stories. Because this is community based I can't pack my book with a bunch of stats, we want to hear the voices of community members and this is what I did with this book. This book is kind of a journey through the enriched project what I've done over the years. It was published in 2018 in April. The voices of the communities, you know, are throughout this book in chapter five I focus on health. In other chapters and chapter six I believe I look specifically at the resistance and mobilizing activities that these communities have engaged in over the past 70 years. So it was a thrill for me to write this book I wasn't really expecting to I was asked to by the publisher by Fernwood. So this isn't something that I sought out. He just reached out and we met and he said I want you to do this book and I said okay, I'll do it. And thankfully I kept a journal of what was happening throughout my project and so it made it made writing the book much easier. It's also a map that I had my research assistant do in 2016 a lot of people were doubting the reality of environmental racism, you know they would email me as I said in the beginning, mostly Nova Scotians saying, you know, I don't I really don't believe this exists, and there are white communities as well that are near to toxic landfills and isn't this about class and race. There's a lot of that in beginning, and after this map was developed, you know a lot of the naysayers actually the kind of some of them came back to me and they said okay I can, I can see it, because this map actually shows the proximity of black and indigenous communities to incinerators, public paper mills, landfills, etc. So if you go on to my website for the Enriched Project you will see two layers of this map one from Big Maw communities, one for African Nova Scotian communities so it tells you what the communities are the names of communities and then the waste sites that are near to these communities and what my research assistant also did which I love because I'm a health researcher is that he also, he annotated bibliography with health information so what he did was he looked at what are the materials, the waste, the substances inside each of these waste sites, for example an incinerator a public paper mill a landfill, and then he went on to the I think mostly the EPA website that's United States, and he looked at the health risks. So this is like a health risk assessment. So he also produced that based on this map as well. In 2016, as I said earlier, I don't think the landfill in Lincolnville will ever be redirected. I mean that's what the community has wanted but I think yeah that's not going to happen so my team said well how else can we support them. And we, we recognize that they've been wanting water testing for some time, but they didn't want the government to do it because of course they didn't trust the government, the government would say you know everything is a okay. So why don't we do a water testing project and we got together a working group comprised of myself, a hydro geologist who happened to actually to be sitting in the audience of that event I just showed you which is why I say events are great, because he was sitting in the audience and he emailed me the next day and he said yesterday was wonderful. But have you ever thought of giving the community something tangible. I was a bit taken aback about to get defensive because I'm thinking I'm doing so much, you know, with this topic of environmental racism I'm doing so much and how dear he suggested I'm not doing enough. But I didn't say anything to him and I didn't get defensive and I said I just need to shut my mouth and I need to listen, which I did and he said in my office and he said we need to give the community something tangible, we need to give them a win. So they continue to be invested in your project and I said well what would that be he said well let's test their water I said I don't know how to do that. He said yeah but I'm a hydro geologist I know how to do that. So then we got together as I said the working group chemistry professor at Nova Scotia Community College, the hydro geologist to environmental science students and we tested the water in Lincolnville we got the samples we, we did a final report shared the findings been back to the community did a few workshops on how to manage your drinking water supply, etc, etc. And then after the project we said this really worked well. So in 2017 we said why don't we use that water testing project as a blueprint to develop a new NGO. So we did it in April 27 2017, we founded rural water watch. And here's the acronym, where we now are testing water in rural Nova Scotian communities not necessarily only black or indigenous any community that's a rural Nova Scotian community we test water as you probably know, rural communities tend to be maybe not all of them on well water and well water tends to be more contaminated so our objectives are to test water in rural communities do workshops, but also to train students so that's part of the work as well as to train mostly environment it's been environmental science students who come and they they're actually some of them are actually leading projects as well. We started last year healthy wells day, where we educate the public about the need to keep your well healthy because an unhealthy well or craft well or an old well can cause many health issues right so we do that work. It's like a awareness raising event we do it online using infographics and posters and we also do it in person where we go into selected communities maybe three communities we did three communities last year, and we take their water samples, we test it, and we give them the results so I'm really, I'm really proud of this organization because it's tangible, and it's giving something back to the community so thank God I listened to the hydro geologist instead of getting defensive. I've also consulted with eco justice as you know they have an office in Halifax on Paula Street they opened in 2018 and I immediately booked an appointment and went down to talk to them about the communities and Nova Scotia that we're dealing with environmental issues I'm sure I didn't need to tell them. I'm sure they already knew but I just wanted to kind of have them meet me. And over the past few years they've been working with these communities including Shelburne. Looking at legal remedies of course it's confidential I don't know what's happening it's not in my business in order for me to know I would have to get the permission of the communities which I, I have but right now I'm not quite sure what is happening with this. What's great is that we were able to provide the water testing results to them, you know I didn't know there was going to be a connection in any way but we did some water testing in Lincolnville and eventually in Shelburne, and they were able to use that information in their activities. So getting into climate change more and more I have to admit that it's not a topic that I was really into, because I felt that environmental racism was huge and that the enriched project was huge and it was keeping me busy. I couldn't take anything on but, as we all know climate climate change is the issue of the day. I need to get involved in this this issue. So in March of this year I selected three African American communities East Preston Shelburne and Truro to do climate change workshops in collaboration with climate action services this is these are retired climate scientists. And so we met in 2019. And then in March of this year, we did the workshops to look at some of the social environmental, political and health issues that shape climate change adaptation. For example in Shelburne you know we talk often about the need for communities to engage in climate change adaptation but sometimes we don't ask do they have the resources to do that do they have the networks do they have the supports to typically low income racialized communities do not right so we have this kind of normative understanding that everybody's going to be able to engage in climate change adaptation but we have to ask the question in terms of the legacy of racism colonialism. There are resources, poverty, all these issues that impact racialized low income communities they have to be prepared, because they experienced in climate change in very specific and unique ways so do they have the resources to adapt. So that project was finished in April and I'm looking to perhaps do future work in this area in terms of a study, because the community, the communities were very surprised that they enjoyed the workshops they didn't think they would be interested, or that engage in the ways that they wanted more. So hopefully I can do more. I don't know what time is it. Yeah, so it's. Okay, I think I have a little bit more time yeah so what has been thrilling for me when I was a Dalhousie is is the recognition that environmental racism is incredibly in is incredibly interdisciplinary. Not about any topic actually, but the reason this was highlighted for me that kind of interdisciplinary multi sectoral nature of the topic of environmental racism is because of the amount of students that I got from varying departments across campus and Dalhousie, which surprised me. You know I had the law students in the law school invite me to do talks and I had sociology students and planning students and medical students and nursing students and well who else environmental science students environmental studies and then geography students from other universities I think it's a was it St Mary's. I've had students approach me to volunteer from so many different departments that I realized quickly that this is so interdisciplinary and it's great for me because of course I'm learning. I'm learning from students and I'm learning from faculty and different disciplines but I'm. I'm putting a different lens on this topic and I realized that everyone has a stake in this topic the law students of course are interested in a lot of things but they're interested in the kind of legislation on the policy. Of course the nursing students are interested in health, the planning students are interested in the sighting, you know where everything goes and geography similar to that environmental science students that makes sense right so everyone really has kind of a role or place in this and what what this told me is how important it is for environmental assessments to be also to be interdisciplinary. My colleague, a professor at Kings, who is doing just that he has a short branch and he's looking at how we can make environmental impact assessments much more interdisciplinary because what I argue in my book is that it's been the domain of environmental scientists people who look at environmental assessments or create them or implement them it's often done through an environmental science lens but we need a health professional on board we need a sociologist on board we need political scientists on board we need interdisciplinary we need a group of people involved because it's such an interdisciplinary topic and I think environmental assessments for example need to consider the health impacts of putting an industry in an indigenous community indigenous communities fear worse than any other community in Canada with respect to health. And when we put an industry in their community, when they've had a legacy of health issues we further compromise that community we worsen their health effects because they're dealing with so many social determinants of health right. So, this is why we need different eyes on environmental assessments to look at the full scope of the full social context of communities before you put decide to put a landfill in their community. So it's been great working with students at Dalhousie from so many different disciplines they've been so enthusiastic about this topic and. Yeah, it made me very hopeful for the future actually with this generation of students and young people they're so passionate about these topics climate change specifically but also environmental racism. I've actually used the media to my benefit. This is also part of awareness raising. I continue to give interviews to all media outlets, because once again I realize that we need to create awareness needs great empathy. And I don't want people to continue to say environmental racism what's that, like I think it's, it's past time that people know about this term. And they're, and they are, you know I'm getting that sense from other parts of Canada now that I'm in Ontario yeah I mean people know the term. And I'm being invited for talks a lot and media here are interested in this topic so it's working the awareness raising has paid off. So this has been really exciting, you know, to have connected with Elliot's in the fall of 2018 through Twitter of all places. I don't have much time to tell the story but I was just really shocked and I didn't know it was the actor I thought I didn't realize it so I kind of left my Twitter page I. And then a few weeks later and I was like oh I guess it is the actor why is he reaching out to me I didn't, I didn't get it. But eventually of course after the shock wore off I, I DMed him and thanked him for promoting my book on Twitter and for talking about how he wants to support the, the communities on the frontline and you know so we, we had a conversation at the end of 2018 through little MacPherson who you know owns the wooden monkey, who's been a longtime friend of Elliot's, and she, and I were sitting doing a project with the East Coast Environmental Association so that I think we got to talking, and she realized I connected with Elliot, and then she said to me do you want me to set up a phone call and I said yes that would be great. I had a phone call with little and Elliot at the end of 2018 and then another phone call to decide what are we going to do in January 2019. And we decided eventually that we would post some 10 minute video clips on Twitter. That's actually what the plan was it wasn't to go to the Toronto International Film Festival or to produce a 70 minute film it was to post some 10 minute clips to raise awareness about environmental racism. And then it came to Halifax, April 13 of 2019 to film, film for six days, and then I went back to his mother's home and they allowed me to look at a rough cut of the film and then I said I looked it in I said this is really emotional I just don't think 10 minute clips on Twitter is going to do this justice. I think if we really want to raise awareness about environmental racism we need a feature film we need something. We need 60 minutes etc. And then Ian Daniel the co director said are you saying something like a 70 minute film I said yeah I said, go big or go home like why do this, if we're not going to go big and we want to raise awareness and I think we should go bigger. And they all decided that yes and I started to talk about film festivals. And I started talking about Toronto International Film Festival because I know that's the most important film festival in the world and I started talking about other film festivals and I said why don't we submit it, you know more awareness, this is knowledge mobilizing, you know in academia, this is what we want we're supposed to do. So we did. So we, we rushed to the deadline, actually the deadline had passed but Elliot is friends with Cameron Bailey, who's the head of head of Tiff. So we got in. And we screened the film on September 9, 2019 there we are in the elegant theater in Toronto. And this was just a real great time we were able to speak with media from around the world Rolling Stone magazine time magazine la times etc etc. But the film had to talk about environmental racism, you know some more awareness raising. And then later that year around October. The, it was announced that it would start streaming on Netflix now I already knew that but yeah that announcement came out. October, I guess 2019 and then it started streaming on March 29, 2020 on Netflix and this has also been a gift, because Netflix of course is mobile and I received a lot of response, a lot of emails from people around the world saying how inspirational. The women in the film were, you know, people like Doreen Bernard and the grassroots grandmothers and, and Louise de Lille and Shelburne they're so inspiring what can I do once again empathy that creates action people are like what can I do how can I help. And this has really been a gift. Since then, last year I connected with an environmental activist in Toronto before I left Halifax and he said, I love what you're doing with the enriched project but have you ever thought of going beyond Nova Socia. And I said I've thought of it you know but I just can't handle it it's too much from me I'm just one person I don't have the capacity he said well why don't we co found something. We did. End of December last year we co founded the Canadian coalition for environmental and climate justice. And this is different from the enriched project in that it's, it's across Canada we're looking at all provinces, and we brought together now probably over 50 different communities in the environmental climate change sector to share skills, share resources share expertise with the end goal of addressing environmental racism across Canada we have people like the David Suzuki Foundation, eco justice East Coast Environmental Association West Coast Environmental Association environmental defense, etc etc it's been really it's a lot of work we have six working groups and we do our work through those working groups we're taking a three black youth to cop 26, I guess it's Sunday, or next week, which is very exciting because we have some money to do that. And one of our goals is to kind of make sure that disadvantaged or marginalized young people get opportunities that they would not normally have particularly because the environmental sector is extremely white, and black people and otherwise people often don't have these opportunities so I know my partner is very, and I am as well very passionate about making sure that we give opportunities to people who are excluded from the very much white environmental sector. I'm doing a lot of stuff right now. I don't have time to talk about it but one of the things that we did was the legislation you probably know about is Nova Scotians bill 111 that the Norse and I developed back in 2015 it went to second reading in Nova Scotia in November, November 2015 but it never got past that and she did reintroduce it up until 2018 and yeah nothing ever came of it so she introduced it as a federal bill February of last year, we kind of modified it together. It went very far. It was approved at second reading it was approved at amendments and if the election wasn't called, it had a good chance of becoming actually legislation the first environmental racism legislation in Canada, however, the election was called and as you probably know, private members bills are just kind of wiped off the table so it died. What we're trying to do now is to get it reintroduced as a government bill rather than a private members bill because private government bills had tend to pass through this is what I was told pass through Parliament, much faster. So two weeks ago, I just mentioned my coalition, we got together David Suzuki was a signatory equal justice all these organizations are about 20 of us, we signed a letter, we sent it to the Prime Minister asking him to reintroduce bill C 230 as a government bill, and also reminding him that he has made statements about the fact that he's actually committed. Well, not him, I think it was Wilkinson that he's committed to addressing this issue so I really think it has a chance. Now we've got a new environment minister I kind of refashion that letter and I sent that letter to the new. He hasn't been put in place yet, but I think his name is Steven Giebel. I sent the letter to him as well on Tuesday. And I guess we'll see what happens, but I really want to see finally this bill turned into legislation in Canada so we could. Oh, we can see the first environmental racism bill probably in North America, because they don't have one in the United States. That's a snippet of some of the work that I've been doing through the enriched project just to conclude I want to say that there is a link between corporate power privilege environmental racism and climate change therefore any response to environmental racism and climate change that does not recognize the complex ways in which social, economic and political systems result in privilege and disadvantage in ways that give some people a pass and make others pay will be meaningless. Those with power and not the people impacted by these injustices to address the problem of environmental racism and climate inequities. Those who have the most influence and the strongest voice should be part of the solution of real action on these issues is to be realized it must be premised on an understanding that the climate crisis and environmental racism require rapid large scale political action and systemic change, and it's the companies and institutions responsible for the crisis that need to pay. Thank you for listening. Thank you so much Dr Walter and for that very powerful presentation. We are even more grateful than we were before that given the unbelievable amount of work that you're currently involved in that you spared the time today to come and talk to us so thank you so much again for that. This was really insightful and I myself have a few questions but I'm going to to let them for the moment we only have 10 minutes for questions so I see that there are two questions in the chat and one in the q amp a so I'm going to move to those and if if anybody else has other questions, please make sure to add them in the in the q amp a box. So first question is from team transparency. Thank you for a very informative presentation. My question concerns the growing international dimension to the industrial and household waste dumping. The industrial and household waste from advanced capitalist economies such as the US UK EU being dumped or exported to a least developed economies. Would you conceptualize this practice as environmental racism and it's so why. Yeah. There isn't there's a term environmental racism and there's of course the term environmental injustices. So people have said to me, for example, what you're talking about is happening in Montserrat, as had people say that in the Caribbean, or in different African countries, and typically environmental racism is about the fact that those in power who are white from members of the elite group are are involved in the siting of industries in racialized communities so racism is salient in the environmental racism definition. I think when you have communities in other countries that are homogenous racially. It's probably not as much a case of environmental racism is a case of environmental injustice so I think I think racism plays out in very specific ways in North America but when we talk about some of these ways going to marginalized or underdeveloped or developing countries around the world. Yes, many of those countries are racialized individuals. Right, so it is still an issue of race because we're talking about corporate power and those who hold that power typically members of the elite white class. So it becomes an issue of social class and race when we talk about these ways traveling around the world but I would say that in countries that are racially homogenous, like in Montserrat or different countries in the Caribbean or in different countries in Africa, it's environmental injustice, and typically it's based on issues of class, because a class becomes salient right different things becomes you know I've talked to my students to talk about the fact that religion is salient when it comes to environmental injustices in their home country. Right, so it really is about the makeup of the population so when I think of for example when I had a talk with the with the gentleman from Montserrat. What he was talking about was that low income individuals in Montserrat with the people who are closest to dumps. That's an issue of social class right they would not putting it in communities that were also black as Montserrat is like 95% black, but they were putting it in in low income communities that were black so it becomes so class becomes salient so the economic status becomes salient so it's really about the makeup of the population and who is holding power in that particular country. So in a way I suppose it's fair to say that environmental racism is a specific form of environmental injustice. Right. Oh, yeah, but in the Canadian literature, those terms I use interchangeably which I don't like. So in the Canadian literature, you will see people talking about environmental justice, for example, but talking about all this, the ills, the environmental ills. And so when I read that I say well where's the justice you're talking about environmental racism environmental justice for example would be the tools or apparatus that you would use to address environmental racism. So for example, Bill C 230 is an example of environmental justice. It's an example of a tool that you would use to address the condition of environmental racism. We can use environmental injustice as a capsule for different forms of environmental burdens. And whether it be class being salient or race being salient they're all aspects of environmental injustices but when we contextualize these issues in North America as I do. So my work is about North America, race then becomes salient just like class becomes salient and environmental racism has a different flavor. When it's contextualized within white dominant society so whether it's somebody who is of a marginalized spiritual or religious group. People who are low income, or people who are racialized, if they're closest to toxic burdens, and they're members of a marginalized religious racial socio economic group that is all considered to be environmental injustices. I just think it's important to point out what's creating it if it's religion, then make that salient and highlight that. And that's why I highlight racism because I know that in North America. And why is it that it's primarily non white communities that are near to these sites that means that race is salient. Regardless of whether a lot of people say to me it's not about race, it's about class. Race becomes salient and it intersects with class and when we talk about racism we have to have to come understand or look at why is it that racialized communities are low income. That requires us to go back to colonialism right. That's why it's salient and these communities are low income for a particular reason. Some people came as slaves right some people were colonized and the resources extracted from them. So they're racialized and they're low income, and, and, but, but this race that salient, right, the poverty, and the fact that they're poor has everything to do with racial categories that were created by Europeans. And the colonization helped to create the situation that many, for example, African Nova Scotians and Mi'kmaq communities are in right now so race becomes salient classes and aspect of that. Thank you so much this was this is very, this was very helpful actually I I've never thought about this distinction and I think a lot of members of the audience haven't so this is this has actually been really really an important question I think. I think we only have time for one. It's in the chat and said thanks for a wonderful talk Dr. Waldron. I was really interested in your comments about making environmental impact assessments more interdisciplinary. Can I ask you to expand on that and explain who is missing and what kinds of expertise or ways of knowing are needed. In other words, is it important to make it not just more interdisciplinary but also more open inclusive and democratic. Yes. So there's a term called participatory democracy. So, when, for example, indigenous communities say we weren't consulted, or we were consulted when the project already started, or we were consulted at the end of the process this is an aspect of participatory democracy but I would say that participatory democracy is not only about making sure that people are at the table, and people are invited, but it's also about the approach that you use right so when I think of environmental assessments I say to myself environmental assessments and I'm not an expert on it, but it's very much steeped in Western ideology and classic your Western ideology sees distinctions between the environment between our health between our but they see these things as separate sorry they see these things as independent and we know that when we think of traditional indigenous knowledge that it's holistic that indigenous peoples framework, their ways of knowing is about holism, the connection between the mind, the body, the spirit, the land, the animals, the water, etc. They see these things as intertwined so when, for example, indigenous people say, when you desecrate my land, you harm my body you harm my community. They see what they're saying that we don't see these things as separate environmental assessments are carried out and created within a kind of your Western knowledge framework, right. So I would say that not only should environmental assessments be interdisciplinary and have different people at the table because there's so many different perspectives that they can bring. It also means that you have to have indigenous voices at the table because their epistemology indigenous epistemology has to be incorporated into how environmental assessments are created and how they are carried out. And that's what's not being done. Right. And people don't want to do that because then they might have a different result it might mean that they can't put that pipeline in that indigenous community which is what they want. Yes, when we talk about inclusivity, it's not only about the technicalities around bringing indigenous people to the table to participate, making it democratic in an environmental assessment is about how are you doing it. Do you want them to just participate or do, do you want them to tell you how they see the world, because the ways in which an environmental assessment needs to be carried out has to, for me be shaped by the ways in which they see the world and we. Once again we call that indigenous epistemology but basically it's about interdependence, interconnectivity of mind, body, soul, spirit, water, land, animals, insects. There's no separation, which is the antithesis to your Western thought. Does that make sense. Thank you so much for this. I think there is another question but we are at the end of our time now. Thank you so much Dr Walter for joining us today this has been such an enlightening conversation I'm sure for many of us. And there will be the recording will be available I think on Monday on the law schools YouTube channel so, and I'm going to tweet it so people can rewatch it and and share it with others if they are interested. Thank you again for all the work that you're doing in this field. Thank you very much. And there are lots of thank yous again in in the chat there for your Dr Walter and indeed it was a real to hear you speak. I want to get to look at the chat. Okay. Yes, you should have a look. People are very grateful for that. And thank you again for taking the time. Thanks a lot everyone. Bye. Good luck.