Canadians have long since been charged as apathetic when it comes to publicly confronting environmental issues or even voting during election time. Though there are certainly some examples to prove otherwise, statistics generally reveal Canadian apathy towards environmental protection.
That being the case, and with the health and sustainability of the environment increasingly in question, perhaps the improvement and promotion of the rarely used federal environmental petition submission process has come at the right time.
Complaining about apathy will not solve apathy. But rather, providing avenues to improve the situation and potentially remove the causes of apathy are starting points to solving the issue.
Although the federal government has been accused of being complicit in allowing environmental degradation in Canada, opening the doors to better access of ministers in charge of environmental matters is a step in the right direction towards altering Canada's attitude towards the nature we live amongst.
The petition process, which has been in place since 1995, but only used slightly over 400 times during that 18-year span, allows anyone in the country to submit a written petition, posing questions to any minister in the 26 federal departments that deal with environmental and sustainable development matters.
“It is a great little process because a petition only requires one signature, not hundreds or thousands,” said Roger Hillier, a director in the Office of the Auditor General of Canada.
As well as promoting the process in the hopes of encouraging more Canadians to voice their concerns about the environment, the government has also included a guide to submitting a petition, which should make the process easier to access.
Mike Hudema, an environmental activist with Greenpeace Canada, said about the recent promotion of the petition process, “I would imagine that part of the reason why it isn't well used, isn't because there is a shortage of environmental problems that the federal government is neglecting, but really because the service isn't very well promoted.
“I also imagine that the response most people would receive from an environmental petition is not necessarily as robust and thoughtful as groups or individuals would like.”
Though some remain skeptical of the petition process, it ought to be viewed as one step among many the federal government should take in improving both its view and the public's often-apathetic attitude towards the Canada's environment.
