GUNTER – Environmental racism is the latest reason for woke warriors

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It’s the double whammy that is environmentalism. Perhaps it’s climate alarmism on steroids.

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Steven Guilbeault, Federal Environment Minister, and the Liberal government have decided that they will support a private members bill being floated by Elizabeth May, former Green Party Leader. This bill would require the federal government assess and prevent environmental racism and advance environmental justice.

It doesn’t matter if no one has a good definition or a solid way to explain what environmental racism is, or how it might be achieved.

(Frankly, it is the Green Party that may have provided the most extreme example of environmental racism. The Green Party’s national executive bullied and harassed Annamie Paul, a black woman, until she couldn’t withstand the pressure and resigned last autumn.

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The term environmental racism fuses together two concepts climate alarmism and identity politics that make woke progressives positively vibrate with something-must-be-done zeal.

This makes the Liberals green crusade more difficult to defend by combining it with the idea that systemic racism is all around. (And you’ll be able to see what happens to those who don’t conform to the establishment theories about the prevalence of racism in the era known as cancel culture.

Blogger Spencer Fernando (spencerfernando.com) calls this a nightmarish combo and predicts, quite rightly, that once Mays bill passes, the Trudeau government will start insisting opposition to their green plan amounts to hate speech (because it indirectly endorses racism). It will also be more bigoted to oppose carbon tax.

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This may sound crazy. However, it is not a problem for the legions woke warriors.

It is not about whether a concept can or cannot be defined. It is important to see what progressives’ opinions and indignation indicate about their moral superiority over the rest of us.

Justin Trudeau is the perfect example of a progressive. It doesn’t matter whether his government keeps any of the lofty promises that it makes. What matters is that it says the right things on trendy issues with sufficient compassion and tolerance.

If I had the chance to explain environmental racism, I would say it is the belief that racialized Canadians are more likely to live near toxic waste sites, pipelines, mines, and garbage dumps. They are therefore at greater risk from health problems caused by their environment.

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The hardcore promoters of this hyper-woke belief insist that activities that are not environmentally friendly (which includes most human activities that make a living) cause more social disruption for Indigenous people.

I have even seen claims on social media that pipeline construction amounts the new residential schools for oil and gas construction’s damage to Indigenous communities.

It will almost certainly become law because both of our Coalition of Convenience partners, the Liberals and NDP, support Mays bill.

At this point, I think it fair to worry about the possibility that combined hysteria regarding climate change and allegations of race will lead the government, perhaps with Dr. Theresa Tam’s blessing and the Public Health Agency of Canada, a declaration of a public emergency to combat climate change.

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This may sound absurd, but this is the government that used the Emergencies Act in Canada to suspend all civil liberties and make Canada’s banks a government weapon. They did it so they could clear downtown Ottawa of bouncy castles.

And the Liberals are still so terrified by COVID, they continue to enforce a mandate in federally regulated jurisdictions to keep a lid on the democratic process even after the rest of democracy has moved on.

It’s not difficult to imagine Liberals seriously considering imposing extraordinary measures in order to deal with what they believe are the twin scourges, climate alarm and belief of systemic racism.