Suzuki’s ‘last great fight’: a Constitution that guarantees environmental rights – by Liam Casey (Victoria Times Colonist – November 14, 2016)

http://www.timescolonist.com/

The Canadian Press – TORONTO – David Suzuki, one of the leading voices on environmental issues over the past half century, says he has embarked on the “last great fight” of his life.

The ultimate goal of the 80-year-old scientist is to have environmental rights for all Canadians enshrined in the Constitution. That’s the only way to ensure environmental policies cannot be overturned with the hottest political flavour, said Suzuki, pointing to the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.

“I think this is a real warning to us that we need something deeper that can protect us against the fluctuations that come with political change,” Suzuki said Monday in an interview with The Canadian Press.

“That’s why we’re saying we need a change in our charter of rights and freedoms.” U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has called climate change a “myth,” and said the concept of global warming was “created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

Suzuki said Trump reminds him of the times under former prime minister Stephen Harper. “A lot of the legislation that had been worked on since the 1960s on navigable waters, environmental assessments and a lot of the progressive environmental legislation was overturned, really, overnight by the Harper government,” he said.

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