Opposition MLAs worry N.S. government is shelving environmental racism report

Opposition MLAs are concerned the Nova Scotia government could be shelving a report on environmental racism after senior Public Works officials told a committee on Wednesday that they have not seen that report or its recommendations a year after it was completed.

In March, Deputy Premier Barb Adams said during question period that the report and its recommendations "are being used by all government departments."

"This is an entire government approach in order to deal with the issues that the panel wanted to be addressed," Adams said at the time. "All government is reviewing those projects and working on the recommendations."

But during a meeting of the legislature's public accounts committee on Wednesday to discuss an auditor general's report on contaminated sites, Public Works deputy minister Paul LaFleche and other senior officials said the report has not been shared with them.

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LaFleche later told reporters he would ensure staff in his department familiarize themselves with it. Public Works is responsible for dealing with the findings of reports and, when it comes to contaminated sites, cleaning them up and containing them, he said.

"If something needs to be done by our department, we will be doing it," LaFleche said.

Liberal MLA Iain Rankin said it's hard to explain why LaFleche and other officials would not have seen the report by now and he's left to conclude that the government is worried about the findings.

"They're not being transparent," he told reporters.

"That tells me that they're not putting a high priority on rectifying the issue of environmental racism … I think you could say it's been shelved."

Minister won't say if she's read recommendations

NDP MLA Lisa Lachance said it's disappointing that the report is not being made public and equally concerning that it's not been shared more broadly within the highest ranks of the government.

"We all know the stories from Boat Harbour, from Africville from Shelburne," Lachance told reporters.

A former dump was located in Shelburne next to a historic Black community in the 1940s, leading to ongoing concerns about health risks and effects. Africville is the former historic Black community in Halifax's north end that was denied municipal services and eventually expropriated by the city to make way for construction of the MacKay Bridge.

Boat Harbour, a former tidal estuary next to Pictou Landing First Nation, was converted to a treatment lagoon for pulp mill waste after the community was misled by government and company officials of the day about the potential impacts. A former Liberal government, with all-party support, forced its closure in 2020 and a cleanup process has since been initiated.

The creation of the panel and its report was the result of an NDP amendment to a piece of major environmental legislation from the Progressive Conservative government in 2022. 

The province received the report from the panel in June of 2024.

Last month, Justice Minister Becky Druhan, who is also responsible for the Office of Equity and Anti-Racism, refused to say if she's read it and her department later said the report and its recommendations were never intended to be made public.

The government has not made African Nova Scotian Affairs Minister Twila Grosse available to take questions on the matter.