tansi ninôtemik,
For those of us here in Edmonton, we are making our way out of hibernation, enjoying longer days and more sunshine! Although we’re happy to see the grass again, it does feel odd to be sporting our spring jackets so consistently in early March. After reviewing our Snapchat memories, we can’t help but feel like spring is “springing” a bit too early. Unfortunately, scientists can confirm our fears: Shorter winters and consistently hot, record-breaking temperatures are here, and our current laws and policies are insufficient to curve the warming trends.[1]
Scientists overwhelmingly agree that anthropogenic activity since the Industrial revolution is the cause of our current climate issues.[2] As such, there is no greater tool in the fight against climate change than the law! That is, regulating human and industrial activity through policy and legislation. Unfortunately, Canada is “in a league of its own for its total lack of credibility on climate action.”[3] Canada has become quite an international embarrassment. Notably, Canada has won the “Fossil of the Year” award over 8 times (with many honourable mentions), a title awarded annually “to the country doing the most damage to climate [issues] in a given year” at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties.[4] We even won the “Lifetime Achievement” “Colossal Fossil” award at the Warsaw Climate Talks in 2013.[5] Most significantly, Canada has failed to meet every climate-related target it has committed to thus far.[6]
We cannot talk about climate change without talking about environmental justice. Environmental Justice is a nuanced term “used to describe a rapidly evolving set of ideas, theories, debates, and principles that examine and critique the connection between environmental burdens and identity factors such as race, gender, and socioeconomic status.”[7] In other words, it is concerned with how climate change disproportionately affects the most vulnerable in our society, as well as how “environmental policies, acts, and decisions that, intentionally or not, disproportionately disadvantage racialized individual groups and communities.”[8]
In Canada, this “environmental racism” results in “hazardous sites and long-term pollution of the land and water in Indigenous and other racialized communities.”[9] Examples include the mercury pollution in Grassy Narrows First Nation, the toxic waste dumping in the Africville community, and the continued boil-water advisories in place for First Nation communities across Canada.[10] Canadian colonial law has failed to meaningfully respond to climate change, continuing to bend the knee to industry and economic incentives. Not only have the government’s policies and legislation been at the expense of the health and safety of humans, society, animals, and the environment for generations to come, but they have had particularly negative consequences on Indigenous peoples in Canada.
Naturally, this has us thinking about how Indigenous law can serve as an important source of environmental law. Natural law, as a fundamental aspect of Indigenous legal traditions, posits that environmental justice is justice for “all our relations” – that is, “justice for all beings of Creation, not only because threats to their existence threaten ours but because from [an Indigenous] perspective, justice among beings of Creation is life-affirming.”[11] This perspective contrasts colonial concepts of environmental law, which views climate change mitigation as necessary to the extent that climate change poses a threat to the resources that human economic and industrial systems are wholly dependent on.[12]
Ultimately, it’s clear that the colonial government is either unwilling or unable to create legislation sufficient to tackle an issue that the Supreme Court of Canada has called “an existential threat to human life in Canada and around the world.”[13] Thus, the phrase “Indigenous Justice if Climate Justice” (or a similar sentiment) has become a staple of both Indigenous and climate movements. In the fight against climate change, we now have no greater tool than the law – and as a source of environmental law, Indigenous law presents an increasingly important and effective tool against climate change. The two are inherently connected. Working to uphold and uplift Indigenous law and Indigenous rights is to fight for environmental sustainability and radical environmental protection. Indigenous Justice is Climate justice!
Until next time,
The ReconciliACTION Team
Citations
[1] “The 2024 Annual Climate Summary: Global Climate Highlights 2024,” Copernicus – Europe’s Eyes on Earth (10 January 2025), online: <climate.copernicus.eu> [perma.cc/RH4N-DY2M]; Alessandro Dosio et al., “How Fast is Climate Changing?: One Generation is Su
fficient for Unfamiliar Heatwave Characteristics to Emerge in Europe” (2025) 178 Climate Change 25; “Warming Projections Global Update,” Climate Action Tracker (November 2024), online (pdf): <climateactiontracker.org> [perma.cc/MC9C-VUMU].
[2] See, for example, Gerrit Hansen & Daithi Stone, “Assessing the observed Impact of Anthropogenic Climate Change” (2016) 6 Natural Climate Change 532.
[3] “Canada Wins ‘Lifetime Unachievement’ Fossil Award at Warsaw Climate Talks,” Climate Action Network Canada (accessed 8 March 2025), online (pdf): <climateactionnetwork.ca> [perma.cc/HU4Y-VTYT]. See also Cameron Jefferies, “Filling the Gaps in Canada’s Climate Change Strategy: All Litigation, All the Time” (2015) 38:5 Fordham Int’l LJ 1371 at 1372.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] David Thurton, “After Years of Missed Targets, Liberals Table Their Climate Plan This Week,” CBC News (28 March 2022), online: <cbc.ca> [perma.cc/6KM9-NJEF]; “Country Summary: Canada” Climate Action Tracker (accessed 8 March 2025), online: <climateactiontracker.org> [perma.cc/CVN8-SAR9].
[7] Nathalie J Chalifour and Dayna N Scott, “Environmental Justice,” in William A Tilleman et al., Environmental Law and Policy, 4th ed, (Toronto: Emond Montgomery Publications Limited, 2020) [hereinafter Enviro L&P] 59 at 60.
[8] Maya Venkataraman et al., “Environmental Racism in Canada” (2022) 68 Can Fam Physician 567 at 567.
[9] Ibid
[10] Ibid; “Ending Long-Term Drinking Water Advisories,” Government of Canada (accessed 8 March 2025), online: <sac-isc.gc.ca> [perma.cc/6698-TVTX].
[11] Deborah McGregor, “Honouring Our Relations: An Anishinaabe Perspective on Environmental Justice” in Agyeman et al, Speaking for Ourselves: Environmental Justice in Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009) at 27, 30.
[12] William Rees and Karin Mickelson, “The Environment: Ecological and Ethical Dimensions” in Enviro L&P 1 at 5-7.
[13] Reference re Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, 2021 SCC 11 at para 171.
[Image] Wing Ka Ho, “Gender and Indigenous Climate Justice at the United Nations,” Earth.Org (11 June 2022), online: <earth.org> [perma.cc/9A5Y-JU3E].
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