Statement made on 11 June 2008 by Senator Grant Mitchell
Hon. Grant Mitchell:
Honourable senators, last week, I too, along with
Senator Milne and others on the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the
Environment and Natural Resources, had a tour. It was a tour of the Northwest
Territories and the Yukon, specifically to study the effects of climate
change.
It was a very powerful experience. For anyone who still denies climate change
or feels no sense of urgency about it, I would recommend a week, or a day or
even several hours in the North speaking to people — particularly Aboriginal
people — who can see it, who feel it and who are living with its impacts right
now. These impacts are particularly hard on Aboriginal people of the North —
where they live, the communities in which they live and the way they live.
I am struck today that as we are apologizing for one unspeakable tragedy that
we have visited upon the Aboriginal people, they may well be confronting another
one in the form of what climate change — that we have contributed to and they,
in reality, have not — will do to their lives in the not too distant future.
The tremendous impacts include: a two to three degree rise in temperature at
Inuvik over 20 years; a precipitous drop in the Bluenose Caribou herd from
160,000 to 40,000 over 5 years; the pine beetle and the spruce budworm killing
northern forests and raising the spectre of more forest fire destruction; the
level of the ocean rising and eroding the shoreline, threatening homes in places
like Tuktoyaktuk along the Mackenzie River Delta; changing migration patterns of
certain species such that animals never seen before are inhabiting the North —
for example, mule/ white tail deer are appearing further north, potentially
bringing viruses and parasites that could kill indigenous species, and polar
bears are seen where they would not normally be and appear disoriented; changes
in weather patterns including thunder, lightening and rain in December in
Tuktoyaktuk; melting icecaps; and ice roads being available for a much shorter
period of time. Most disturbing is the melting of the permafrost, which releases
heavy metals that affect the water tables and releases enormous amounts of
greenhouse gas.
Many indigenous communities in the North are experiencing this first before
the rest of us in Canada do. Clearly, they did not create this problem and they
can do little to fix it without the rest of Canada and Canadian leadership in
the world along with them to fix it. All Canadians must embrace this challenge
and begin to do whatever it takes to fix climate change.
There are many reasons why we must fix this problem but, in the context of
today's apology to the Aboriginal people of Canada, one of the most poignant
reasons is that we are apologizing for one unspeakable tragedy we visited upon
the Aboriginal people of our country. I hope, and I know that we all hope, we
can take the action required so that we never have to apologize for another
tragedy again.