A group of Nova Scotia government ministers still hasn’t met with a panel that was tasked with examining environmental racism in the province, despite promising the meeting nearly three months ago.
Justice Minister Becky Druhan said today that the meeting, which was first talked about in late June, is still a few weeks away, although she couldn’t be specific about an exact date.
Druhan did confirm the minister who will decide on whether to release the panel’s report publicly is Environment Minister Tim Halman.
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The government received the report more than a year ago but has refused to release its recommendations.
Halman says that he will consider what the panel has to say following the meeting, but he wouldn’t commit to releasing the report.
Both the opposition NDP and Liberals say they believe the government doesn’t want to meet with the panel during the upcoming fall sitting of the legislature, which begins Tuesday.
The NDP proposed the panel in an amendment to climate change legislation adopted in the fall of 2023.
Environmental racism can occur in instances where landfills, trash incinerators, coal plants, toxic waste facilities and other environmentally hazardous activities are located near communities of colour, Indigenous territories and the working poor.
The eight-member panel was appointed in June 2023 and its members included community leaders with expertise in subjects such as Mi’kmaw and African Nova Scotian history, law, health and environmental sciences.
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