Documentary filmmaker, writer and environmentalist Silver Donald Cameron is bringing his case for environmental rights for Canadians to Charlottetown Monday.
He will present his film Green Rights: The Human Right to a Healthy World as part of a tour of the Maritimes.
The film is part of Cameron’s multimedia Green Rights project, which makes the case that Canadians should have the legal right to a healthy planet.
“Canadians and Americans should have these rights, which are practically universal everywhere else in the world,” Cameron told CBC’s Island Morning.
Cameron said only 12 of 193 countries in the UN, including Canada and the U.S., do not have environmental rights embedded in law.
“This would give every citizen the right and the responsibility to do something,” Cameron said.
“You see something that’s an affront to your legal right to a healthy environment, you can take legal action about it.”
Making a difference around the world
Green Rights explores cases where citizens have used these rights to make a difference where they live.
In Argentina, slum dwellers sued over the state and local companies over the polluted Riachuelo River, which runs alongside their neighbourhood. The Argentinian Supreme Court ruled in 2006 their environmental rights were being violated, prompting a billion-dollar cleanup.
In 2015 the Dutch government was ordered by a court to do more to reduce carbon emissions.
“You can get some really big results if you have these rights and you have gifted lawyers who know how to use them,” Cameron said.
Now is the time to talk about this, he said, because changes to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act are on the table in Ottawa.
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