Ottawa Insider

Environmental activist Beze Gray of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation worries that the government data collected will be too broad and not fully encompassing of what their community has experienced.

If Parliament were unable to constitutionally address carbon pollution, the court ruled, the harm "would be felt across the country and would be borne disproportionately by vulnerable communities and regions, with profound effects on Indigenous Peoples, on the Canadian Arctic and on Canada’s coastal regions."

The health burden from pollutants in the air that come from industrial activities like oil and gas extraction, mining, manufacturing, construction, and transportation — as well as natural events like forest fires — contributed to 15,300 premature Canadian deaths in 2016.

This month, Democrats in the United States introduced the CLEAN Future Act in Congress, which would create a “buy clean” program to set standards for emissions allowed in construction materials bought using federal funds. 

Bill C-230 would require the federal government to collect data on locations affected by environmental hazards, and to examine their connections to race, socioeconomic status and health.

The natural resources minister demanded to know if Conservative MP Jeremy Patzer believed in climate change. "You’re here to answer our questions,” Patzer shot back.

“We can have clean air with carbon dioxide in the air,” said one speaker. “We should be focused on clean land, clean water. This is a big-government, costly policy that unfairly impacts our industries.” 

The Green Party had the least diverse slate of candidates of the six major parties in the 2019 federal election campaign. Annamie Paul wants to change that.

The group Savestartups.ca counts 21 businesses, most of them cafes, bars and restaurants in B.C. and Ontario, that have found themselves unable to access the government’s wage and rent subsidies because they opened after the pandemic was declared.

The African Development Bank Group, which is operating the climate fund, will receive the money from Canada at the end of the month, according to Global Affairs Canada. The fund is set to last for 30 years and will go towards supporting energy-efficient projects, scaling up renewable energy and developing green infrastructure and sustainable cities.

Green officials said they’ve never seen polling numbers like the ones they’re seeing in certain core Toronto seats. 

"What can we best do to help Enbridge in your desire to continue operating the line?" Liberal MP Anthony Housefather asked a company executive Tuesday.

Bill C-204 seeks to halt only the export of plastic waste labelled “for final disposal,” however environmental groups note Canadian plastic is often mislabelled as recyclable and gets shipped to countries that lack the proper infrastructure to effectively recycle mixed or contaminated plastic waste.

The government has said that this listing is a “necessary regulatory step” before it can enact new rules changing how plastic products are designed, manufactured and thrown out, in order to cut down on the plastic pollution that clogs rivers and oceans.

EnviroMuslims, a community group that aims to increase climate action within the Canadian Muslim community, and Faith and the Common Good, a national inter-faith charitable network, are taking part in Sacred People, Sacred Earth, a global day of action on March 11 in 38 countries.