Honourable senators, I rise to speak to Senator Coyle’s inquiry into finding the right pathways and actions for Canada and Canadians to meet our net-zero carbon-emission targets to slow, arrest and reverse human-caused climate change to ensure a healthy planet, society, economy and democracy.

I thank Senator Coyle for her leadership in focusing this chamber’s attention on this urgent matter. As Senator Coyle noted, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, every country must band together and put ourselves on a path toward zero global net emissions of carbon dioxide. With every passing day, we get closer to turning an avoidable problem into irreversible environmental destruction. How many more land- and water-protecting children need to skip school to march in the streets and on the Hill to remind us that there is no planet B?

Imagine being a child today, unsure if you will be able to enjoy the quality of air, water, food, homes, green spaces and communities that many of us took for granted, and that too many already do not have. We must heed the calls to action of young people like 17-year-old Greta Thunberg; 15-year-old Autumn Peltier, Chief Water Commissioner for the Anishinabek Nation; and the students from more than 60 schools across Manitoba who took part in Take 3 for Climate Justice, an examination of the human rights implications of climate change. These and many other youth are taking on incredible responsibilities as they try to stop environmental devastation, too often in the absence of action from adults around the world.

As Greta Thunberg has so clearly articulated:

You cannot solve the crisis without treating it as a crisis . . . .

Meaningfully addressing climate issues and environmental degradation is one of the most complex and intersectional challenges this generation will face. The effects of systemic and historical injustices risk being entrenched and amplified. Worse still, we know that poverty, violence against women and environmental degradation too often go hand in hand. In Canada, we should be looking to countries like Finland, where climate stability and environmental protection are inextricably linked to sustainable economic development, gender equality and a robust social welfare state.

Canada has committed to meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This international framework insists that effective climate action be rooted in principles of substantive equality. The first of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is, in fact, the eradication of poverty in all its forms. Millions of Canadians live below the poverty line. They are disproportionately bearing the consequences of our failure to manage carbon and other emissions, from increased flooding and droughts, to catastrophic weather events like hurricanes and tornadoes. Climate change has resulted in higher food costs and increased food insecurity, particularly in the North. As we have seen with recent wildfires in the West, as well as in South America and Australia, those living in poverty have fewer viable means to prepare for, protect themselves from, and safely leave areas experiencing natural disasters.

Indigenous peoples have also been disproportionately and unjustly affected by Canadian laws and policies aimed at economic and industrial development. Environmental degradation has interfered with access to Indigenous communities; threatened sacred sites; disrupted traditional activities, such as hunting, fishing and foraging; and endangered wildlife and plant diversity, as well as water and food quality, all of which undermine the health and well-being of individuals and communities.

Hurricane Katrina in 2005 provided a clear example of how natural disasters magnify inequality. Without access to vehicles or resources to facilitate transportation, poor, predominantly black and women-headed households and communities were not able to be evacuated. Following the hurricane, black residents were 40% less likely to be able to return to their former homes. For women who were both racialized and poor, the barriers to returning home included higher living costs, less accessible public services and weakened social safety networks. After the hurricane, women were less likely to find jobs equivalent to those they had before, or to be able to keep their businesses afloat.

Environmental degradation further marginalizes those who are already impoverished. At the same time, particularly for those in communities with extractive industries, fear of job loss and of resulting poverty has too often prevented Canada from acting to protect the environment.

Senator McCallum’s Motion No. 19 has raised some of the significant environmental, health, social and safety concerns associated with natural resource extraction projects. Communities often live with these risks because advocating protections or opposing the expansion of industry is seen as imperilling jobs or even entire local economies.

Guaranteed livable income programs could help to mitigate an otherwise stark trade-off between livelihoods and the environment. All of us risk being infinitely impoverished if this planet becomes uninhabitable. We are already seeing greater volatility in resource extraction sectors. A guaranteed livable income would probably not match the wages earned through resource extraction jobs, but it could provide vital and necessary support during such periods of economic transition. It could ensure individuals have a safety net in case of job loss or other financial setbacks and could provide a stable source of income for those seeking to retrain or develop new entrepreneurial opportunities or other pathways to greater economic independence.

Guaranteed livable incomes could create space to develop not only more sustainable but also more equal and more just economies, where communities are empowered to make long-term decisions about what will best serve the future well-being of all community members.

In 2004, grassroots and national feminist groups collaborated to study what measures would be necessary to ensure security and autonomy for all women. Their answer was the Pictou Statement, a call for a national guaranteed livable income. The statement emphasized the potential of guaranteed livable incomes to help communities resist and develop alternatives to economies that “. . . ignore the well-being of people and the planet” and “deny the value of women’s work. . . .”

The UN Sustainable Development Goals also emphasize the connection between upholding women’s rights, economic rights and environmental rights.

The link between marginalization and victimization of women is too often exacerbated in situations of environmental crises. Following Hurricane Katrina, women whose families had lost their homes and ended up in government-managed trailer parks reported rates of violence more than three times higher than other women in the year following the hurricane. They were significantly more likely to be victimized by their partners.

As Senator McCallum has reminded us, and as the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls outlines, resource extraction work is associated with higher rates of violence against women and, in particular, for Indigenous women. Human trafficking and sexual exploitation have all too frequently been linked to resource extraction camps. Women living in remote regions may face economic barriers to leaving an abusive partner if they rely on their partners’ incomes or have no safe place to go.

Dr. Pamela Palmater has underscored that:

Genocide and ecocide go hand in hand. Extraction and development destroys the lands and waters on which [Indigenous peoples] depend . . . and is a direct contributor to the violence and genocide committed against Indigenous women and girls.

Climate policy too often risks depicting women — and particularly Indigenous women — as either victims of climate change without agency or “natural protectors” of the earth expected to shoulder unfair burdens. Around the world, grassroots, women-led initiatives have had significant success in preventing and resisting environmental degradation. It is important to recognize and support this knowledge, leadership and expertise — in particular, Indigenous traditional knowledge — in plans for climate action.

It is also vital, however, that all in Canada do their fair share. Canada has committed to “take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.” Canada has too often stood by and left it to Indigenous peoples to take the lead in protecting land and water in ways that benefit all of us, from the Wet’suwet’en matriarchs in British Columbia, to the Mi’kmaq and Innu water protectors in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. Indigenous peoples have been criticized for causing “inconveniences” and depicted as transgressors of the rule of law, then criminalized and even imprisoned.

In recent weeks, Senator McCallum, Massey College and some 200 lawyers and legal scholars have reminded us that when we hear the term “rule of law,” we need to ask whose rules and whose laws are being privileged; and, conversely, whose are being subordinated in such discussions. Canadian legal systems have too often failed to protect and uphold rights conferred by Indigenous and international legal orders, such as those that the Wet’suwet’en land and water protectors have been asserting. Canada has not, however, demonstrated the same hesitation when it comes to criminalizing and imprisoning Indigenous peoples for taking measures to protect themselves, their families or the environment.

As we work to address climate change and environmental degradation, it is clear that Canada needs to better recognize and respect Indigenous laws and rights. This must include following through on its commitment to fully implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Criminalizing people for protecting their environment and asserting their rights will only escalate and underscore historical injustices.

As senators, we have a vital role to play in promoting and upholding international commitments to reconciliation, to eradicating inequality and to urgently acting to redress climate change. Young Canadians, our children and grandchildren, are already leading the way. They and future generations are counting on us to do our part, so let’s get on with it and not waste any more time debating whether to act. The time to act is now. Meegwetch, thank you.