E-3695 Petition to the Government of Canada
This petition was presented to the House of Commons on May 17th, 2022 and the federal government has responded September 20 2022.
The petition read Whereas:
- The Government of Canada has made a commitment to carbon neutrality;
- Highly polluting industries often have the opposite impact;
- The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has guidelines for the use of explosives in or near Canadian fishing waters;
- There is a need to establish guidelines on all impacts (air, water, sound, shockwave) caused by the use of explosives near residential areas; and
- The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the federal government has the right to overrule provincial decisions on climate change issues, and Canada recently adopted legislation to respect the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
We, the undersigned, residents of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to:
1. Stop construction of all new facilities used by highly polluting industries, such as cement plants, nuclear waste facilities, factories, and so on, until there has been in-depth consultation (accepting refusal, if that is the case) with the indigenous communities whose natural surroundings will be affected by the project;
2. Request that a comprehensive review be conducted by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans on the impacts on wildlife if the construction project affects interprovincial or international waters; and
3. Request that a review be conducted by a neutral third party and not by firms hired by the companies attempting to build the projects, and that the costs of these reviews be paid for by those companies.