Port Moody has declared its residents have the right to live in a healthy environment, joining several other cities in the Blue Dot campaign to enshrine that right in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The campaign, led by the David Suzuki Foundation, calls on citizens to band together and lobby their municipality to pass declarations as Port Moody did at Tuesday's council meeting. It's hoped that when enough communities join the campaign, provincial and territorial governments will be compelled to follow suit with environmental bills of rights.
The ultimate goal is amending the Charter to include the "right to clean air, fresh water and healthy food for all Canadians," according to the campaign's website. "This ensures that we all benefit from a healthy environment, world-class standards and a say in the decisions that affect our health."
Port Moody joins Richmond, Vancouver, Victoria and Montreal in the Blue Dot movement and, as Coun. Rick Glumac said, builds on the city's tradition of environmental leadership.
"I believe with this declaration and subsequent submission to LMLGA, UBCM and FCM, we can help inspire other communities to join us in saying, 'Yes, everyone should have the right to a healthy environment,'" he said of the motion.
Fellow councillors also expressed their support for the declaration, eliciting applause from about a dozen audience members.
But a motion from Coun. Diana Dilworth to refer the declaration to staff for a report on the potential human resource and financial implications of the commitment was met with little appetite apart from Mayor Mike Clay.
Several councillors said the declaration requires the city to "specify objectives, targets, timelines and actionsto address the residents' right to a healthy environment," by 2016, giving staff nearly a year to draft plans for the half-dozen "priority actions" listed in the resolution.
Those include: ensuring city infrastructure and development projects and those in the private sector respect the objective of protecting the environment; reducing greenhouse gas emissions; prioritizing walking, cycling and public transit as preferred modes of transportation; prioritizing infrastructure for the provision of safe and accessible drinking water; reducing solid waste and promoting recycling and composting; and establishing green spaces in all residential neighbourhoods.
Clay noted such requirements will mean diverting staff resources from existing workloads and the city manager had asked that it be referred to them for review before its approval.
"We've taken a preliminary look and it will cost money, it will cost time, it will change priorities," said Kevin Ramsay. "That doesn't mean we can't incorporate it into other work but we haven't looked at it with any detail to know exactly what those numbers are and how that fits into the broader departmental workload."
Coun. Meghan Lahti said the declaration was in keeping with council's priorities of environmental protection and it would reinforce work the city is already doing while offering other areas for improvement, while Coun. Barbara Junker suggested some of the actions are already in council's strategic plan.
Coun. Zoe Royer likened the declaration to a declaration of marriage. "It's the highest level of commitment we can make, it's a promise and it's a vow that says we put the environment on top of everything else and we'll make everything else work around that."
But Clay countered that making declarations about human rights is not something to be taken lightly and requires much more due diligence, calling the vote "colossally bad process."
"I feel this is not properly researched and there are things in here right away I know we can't fulfill," he said. "I don't believe you go around making declarations just to make yourself feel goodand I don't think you make big, fundamental declarations like this before you consult with your community."
The resolution carried with Clay the sole vote against it.
A Tri-Cities Blue Dot event is happening on Thursday, March 5 at Douglas College (David Lam campus, Coquitlam) from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Two short films - David Suzuki's Blue Dot Movement and We Rise Up, on the climate justice protests on Burnaby Mountain - will be shown and there will be a handful of guest speakers.
For more information search for Tri-Cities Blue Dot on Facebook.
@spayneTC
