Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has tabled a petition calling on the federal government to take urgent action on Canada’s aging asbestos-cement pipes due to the potential dangers of drinking tap water containing the deadly fibre. “This is an understudied and unregulated problem,” May said Thursday in the House of Commons. “Believe it or not, many municipalities rely on old cement water pipe delivering water to millions of Canadians, and the pipes contain asbestos fibres.”
Fracking is a process of drilling and injecting fluid into the ground at a high pressure in order to fracture shale rocks and release natural gas inside. Although fracking has been used in the U.S. since the 1950s, it was not until recently that this process made its way up to Canada. Currently, there is a moratorium on fracking in Quebec, but this process is still occurring in many other parts of the country. Fracking has been shown to have a number of negative environmental impacts, including water contamination, air pollution, and noise pollution. In addition, fracking can also lead to earthquakes. For these reasons, it is important for Canadians to be aware of the dangers of fracking so that they can make informed decisions about whether or not to support this process.
