Raymond Sheppard: “It is African Heritage Month. Our struggles continue, yet now it is time to celebrate our glorious history. It is also time for the government of Nova Scotia to step up to the plate and do the right thing as it pertains to African Nova Scotians.”
Reporter Rebecca Hussman braved last Tuesday’s snowstorm and attended a panel on environmental racism and the law. “The weakest link, they thought, is the African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaq communities, so therefore we will locate anything and everything we’ve got to get rid of in and around those communities. We know they have no large incomes. We know their levels of education is lower. So let’s locate this dump over here…we don’t care.”
This morning at the launch of the Environmental Bill of Rights Louise Delisle, a resident of the Black community within the Town of Shelburne, spoke about the damage done by pollution from the town dump placed right in the middle of the community. With her permission we publish that speech here.
“We were not allowed to speak. They would never speak for fear of repercussions, not being able to care for their families if they spoke up because they would lose their job.”
A proposed Environmental Bill of Rights for Nova Scotia is designed to empower communities and stop stonewalling by polluters and governments.
Some ordinary people fighting environmental hazards in their backyards, and a bunch of students as well, showed up at the start of the fall session at Province House, and they aren’t very happy with the Liberal government.
In September storyteller and environmentalist Silver Donald Cameron will show his new documentary Green Rights, The Human Rights to a Clean Environment, at Nova Scotia university Campuses. Here is a preview.