Looking at Environmental Justice on World Environment Day

Environmental Justice in Canada’s Chemical Valley

photo: Joshua Best

For decades, families in the community of Aamjiwnaang First Nation near Sarnia, Ontario, have lived beside one of the most concentrated industrial zones in the country: Chemical Valley.

More than 60 petrochemical and refining facilities operate in the region, representing roughly 40 percent of Canada’s chemical industry. For neighbouring communities, the economic footprint of this industry comes with serious concerns about air pollution, toxic exposures, and the impact on their health and the environment. Chemical Valley releases tens of thousands of tonnes of pollutants each year that are linked to respiratory illness, cancer risk, and other long-term health impacts.

photo: Joshua Best

For years, residents of Aamjiwnaang have raised alarms about the cumulative effects of industrial emissions surrounding their territory. Ecojustice has worked alongside them for over a decade to bring these concerns into the public eye and push for stronger environmental protections.

This work has taken many forms. Ecojustice has supported research on pollution levels in Chemical Valley, helped amplify the voices of community advocates, and pursued legal strategies, including a charter challenge, to hold governments accountable for failing to adequately protect the health and rights of nearby residents.

photo: Joshua Best

Community leadership has been at the heart of this effort. Aamjiwnaang advocates have documented pollution incidents, spoken out about the impacts on their families, and called for stronger safeguards to ensure future generations can grow up in a safe and healthy environment.

Environmental justice means that no community should bear a disproportionate burden of pollution. Yet communities like Aamjiwnaang continue to face environmental risks that many others do not.

At Ecojustice, we are committed to ensuring environmental laws are enforced and that everyone in Canada has the right to a healthy environment.

We are deeply grateful to the Sisters of St. Joseph for their support. Their commitment helps make it possible to partner with communities like Aamjiwnaang First Nation and others across the country, strengthening protections, upholding environmental laws and working towards a healthier, more just future.

-Manan Kohli, former Healthy Communities Communication Strategist, Ecojustice.  

Header Image: Nikolett Emmert/Unsplash

Partners in Hope: Supporting Housing, Dignity, and Community in London

On the Closure of House of Hope

The Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada partner with London Cares Homeless Outreach and Regional HIV/AIDS Connection. Across London, organizations have worked deliberately to build a community where everyone can access the housing and support they need to live with stability and dignity.

House of Hope is a vital part of that housing continuum. For many residents, it bridged the gap between encampments or shelters and more stable supportive or affordable housing. Closing this deeply supportive housing creates a serious void and leaves both residents and staff facing renewed uncertainty and distress.

Too much of the time and energy of London Cares leadership—and of many across the social service sector—is consumed by securing, protecting, and renegotiating funding. That outlay of energy is needed in supporting frontline staff, and helping residents move toward stability. This work strengthens not only the lives of House of Hope residents, but the well-being of the wider London community.

Displacing residents and staff is an avoidable setback to the Whole of Community Response to Homelessness. We trust that the province and the city along with those most affected can resolve this together. At a time when communities are already under strain, preserving effective supportive housing is both necessary and do-able.

-Sister Margo Ritchie, csj

image: Adam Papp/Unsplash

Read about it here.

Love and the Environment

Outside the windows of my residence, I have witnessed this spring of 2026 as being a spring of many memorable oddities, spectacles, wonders, and disasters.

The pair of Canadian geese came back rather early to nest on the edge of our roof garden again.  Mother Goose sat on her nest for way over a month without hatching a single gosling.  This was odd and yet during her time on the nest there were hot days then snowy days and even a little hail on one occasion.

The wild turkeys are amusing with their flamboyant plumage and careful but intentional moves and behaviours during the mating season.  Usually, three birds travel past the dining room window.  Two males strut side by side with their tail feathers fully fanned while following a female sauntering slowly ahead or sometimes dashing out in front. They are huge birds and to see them fly into the trees where they safely roost at night is a sight to behold at sundown.

Every spring I enjoy watching the leaves grow on the trees turning quickly from a green fuzzy appearance to small then large leaves.  But this year was different.  The fluctuating temperatures this spring caused the leaves to grow slowly.

The fact that the leaves grew slowly had a ripple effect on the bird population.  Two robins chose the tree outside my window to build a nest.  Since the leaves took a long time to develop, I was able to watch the amazing architectural achievement right to the depositing of the four tiny blue eggs into the well-built nest.  Then disaster struck.

The disaster I witnessed took place on a cold, rainy, windy spring night when the mother robin was no longer able to protect her eggs from the wind and water and she was forced to abandon the nest.  The pair of robins assessed the damage, cleared out and cleaned up the nest, and proceeded to lay four more eggs as the temperature warmed up and the leaves began to grow larger.  Not long after the rebuilding and repopulating the nest with eggs, we experienced a tornado passing through the south of our city.  Once again, the mother robin had to abandon the nest, and the pair of robins haven’t been seen since.

Living so close to the environment and seeing the effects of changing weather patterns on the bird population has an emotional effect on me.  The obstacles faced by the nesting birds, the courage they demonstrated while protecting their eggs and the helplessness I felt as a silent observer, profoundly moved me.  Is it love?

-Sister Elaine Cole, csj

Images: Hannah Schulte/Unsplash; Elaine Cole

How about a little ethics with our politics?

Many governments have an ethics commissioner. Generally, this person’s job is to ensure that public officials avoid conflicts of interest (that they don’t use their position for personal or financial gain).

What an ethics commissioner does not do is give an ethical evaluation of the impacts of budgets, policies, and government choices. That’s up to the public. It’s up to us. But to do so, we need to pay attention to what governments are doing. We need to ask: What patterns and priorities are emerging in their policy choices?

Consider how some of the lowest-income people in Ontario are being impacted by government policies:

• First, at a time when many companies aren’t hiring due to trade disruptions, and costs are soaring, Ontario Works’ basic rate (social assistance) is stuck at $733 monthly. That amount hasn’t changed since 2018. In those intervening years, inflation has eroded the purchasing power of $733 by more than 20 %. What does one have to do to survive on so little money? And how could one possibly get job-ready when one is just trying to survive?

• Second, in June, provincial funding for Ontario’s last eight publicly funded supervised consumption sites will end. Will these closures lead to more overdose deaths and increased health-care costs?

• Third, given the provincial government’s closure of these supervised consumption sites, and the earlier push to get people out of encampments, one would imagine that the government would be “all in” when it comes to supporting programs such as London’s House of Hope.  

London, Ontario’s House of Hope set to close after province denies funding.

House of Hope has 48 units and has been supporting people with physical and mental health issues, including addiction. In less than three years of operation it has proven to be effective in providing the wrap-around services that help people stay off the street. It has also reduced pressure on shelters, hospitals, and emergency services. And yet, so far, House of Hope has been unsuccessful in securing $1.37 million in ongoing provincial funding. Without this funding, House of Hope will be forced to close when its funding runs out in November. And how many similar stories are occurring in communities across Ontario? In your community?

The political conversation has been predictable. The city council blames the province for cutting funding. The provincial government lists all the money it spends on such services province-wide, and insists the city needs to better allocate its money. Who does one believe? And is there any point to the “blaming game” other than skirting responsibility?

Might the people of Ontario make a difference by taking an ethical stance?  

It’s just not right for people who live on the lowest incomes to continually be the target of insufficient funding and loss of services, be it OW, safe consumption sites, or wrap-around services. When we have programs that work, we need to fund them.

-Sister Sue Wilson, CSJ | Executive Director, Office for Systemic Justice

Image: Lady Justice statue, Philippe Oursel@ourselp/Unsplash