Ontario's Environmental Bill of Rights

[Comrade Akai]

In Ontario, a province in Canada, they have a little something called the Environmental Bill of Rights (http://www.ecoissues.ca/wiki//index.php?title=Environmental_Bill_of_Rights). In a nutshell it supposedly allows the people to question the government and hold it accountable for environmental decisions. It also supposedly allows the people to have a share in environmental decision making.

My question is this: How effective is this, really? Canadians are notorious for political apathy...and how far does this Environmental Bill of Rights extend in regards to involving the people in decision-making?

As someone who is currently in Ontario I don't think that it's effective. Most people don't seem to know or care about the Environmental Bill of Rights, and they don't make an attempt to change anything.

[Comrade Akai]

Bump.

[Ismail]

It sounds similar to how the USA is composed of "we the people" and that the government gains its ability to govern only by the consent of "the people."

So basically it's meaningless and meant to portray the USA (or in this case Ontario in-re the environment) as "exceptionally democratic."

[blake 3:17]

I never heard of it til you posted on it. Looks like tokenistic greenwashing from the provincial Liberals.

I don't think it's all that helpful to say we're apathetic. There's been interesting rural/urban native/non-native alliances in opposition to uranium mining which have had an impact.

If you're in Toronto, you might want to go to the reportback from Cochabamba tomorrow evening at the Steel Workers Hall. Details here: http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=2166