There's Something in the Water

What kind of country is Canada?

That depends on the eyes you put on it.

Nova Scotia: Canada's ocean playground.

I grew up in the capital city, Halifax.

Drive less than an hour away in any direction

and you're on a scenic shoreline without a worry in the world.

In some ways, Nova Scotia is the embodiment

of what many view Canada to be.

A sweet escape.

As a child, this is the image I had of the province.

Connected to nature, open-hearted...

and welcoming to all walks of life.

After all, Canada takes care of its people.

- Are you Canadian? -

We have universal healthcare.

Marriage equality became a reality 14 years ago.

And we're the second country in the world to legalize weed.

But when you look beneath the surface,

the picture-perfect image begins to crack.

No way! No way! No way!

Politicians promise one thing and they do another...

Our history of colonialism continues today.

And our chances to save the environment are becoming slimmer every day,

as corporate interests seem more important to the government

than public concerns.

And the more I saw, the more I couldn't help but use my platform

to speak out.

Do you have any idea how we can get the public and the media

to pay more attention to what's happening in global warming?

I just want to say, too, people, particularly the most marginalized people,

and particularly people in the world that had nothing to do with this,

are the ones that are suffering the most currently.

Including in Canada.

Including the environmental racism that's happening in Canada,

including the province I'm from.

It's like, this is something that's happening.

And it's happening, the most marginalized people,

and we need to be talking about it.

Hello. Ingrid.

- Hi, Ingrid. -Hey, Ingrid.

- Hi. I'll let you in. -

Thank you.

I'm going to meet with Professor Ingrid Waldron,

who wrote the essential book on environmental racism in Nova Scotia,

There's Something in the Water.

Nice to see you.

-Thank you for everything. -Nice to meet you. Oh, no problem.

I woke up one morning in my office and I went to my Twitter.

And I saw somebody new following me. It said "Tiny Canadian."

It didn't say "Ellen Page, actress," so I didn't think anything of it.

And then I think I went back a month later

and my Twitter page had all these comments.

Like never before.

And I was like, "What is going on?"

And I realized it was you!

And it was there that this journey began.

Environmental racism is the condition,

is the problem,

of disproportionate exposure

of indigenous communities, black communities,

other communities of color, to environmental burdens,

to pollutants and contaminants.

But it's also about the slow response by government, right?

To address these issues.

What we know is that where you live

has bearing on your well-being.

In Canada, your postal code determines your health.

So we know that certain communities

are less healthy because of where they live.

Most African Nova Scotians live

in historical African Nova Scotian communities,

which are rural communities,

and many of them are near landfills.

And we know indigenous communities as well are the ones

that tend to be disproportionately located near to these hazardous sites.

When you're living in out-of-the-way, invisible communities

that often lack a voice,

that are invisible to government,

um, then often your voice isn't heard.

You have to look at environmental racism

within the context of the history of Nova Scotia,

within the context of colonialism in Nova Scotia and Canada.

There is a reluctance, a hesitance in Canada,

to name racism.

Racism imbeds itself into all of our social structures,

and in Canada we tend to steer clear of that.

Racism and environmental racism

have real impacts on the ground,

with respect to these particular communities.

It has impacted black and indigenous communities socially,

economically, and politically.

When you look at particular communities as not being worthy...

of having no humanity...

of, uh, not being valuable,

which is how we typically think of non-white peoples...

then it makes sense in many ways

that you're not going to respond

in the similar way as you would with a white community

because...

these communities don't mean anything to you, to individuals.

So I think there's a detachment,

as if you're not taking time to meet communities

and get a sense of their priorities.

Their experiences, their challenges

will never get written into environmental policy.

It requires that you listen to these communities,

and that's typically what's not happening.

If you look at a map of Nova Scotia

and you plot out the points where black and indigenous communities are located,

and then you mark where landfills and toxic industries are placed,

a disturbing connection becomes clear.

I'm heading to a few of these communities to hear how these environmental burdens

impact people's lives.

The first place I'm going is the town of Shelburne,

just about 20 minutes away from where some of my family's from.

Seen by many as a lily-white coastal town...

Shelburne County once had the highest population

of freed black people in North America...

their descendants now living mostly in the south end of Shelburne.

But from the moment they settled here 250 years ago,

black citizens never received the same treatment

as their white counterparts.

A reality that they still face today...

as a dump that was placed in the town in the 1940s

continues to haunt residents in South Shelburne

years after it was closed.

I'm going to speak with local activist Louise Delisle to find out more.

Hey, you really like dogs.

Hi, precious!

-It's so nice out here. -Yep.

Yeah, it's beautiful here.

You know my family is from Lockeport.

-Yes, I heard that. -Yeah.

-So I've spent a lot of time... -I know some peo--

-Do you know Fred Page? -...in Shelburne.

-Fred? No. -No.

-I just know my dad was Dennis Page... -From Lockeport.

Dennis Page, Lorie Page.

-I know Lorie Page. -Yeah.

Oh, jeez. Zach does that all the time:

"My cousin, my cousin, my cousin."

-Oh, Zach Page. -Lorie. I know Lorie.

-Oh, yeah. -Yeah.

-Yeah. -Nice, nice!

From the time that the black loyalists landed here,

we, like I said, we were indentured.

When we got here, we got here with a promise

of something better

for us, because we were slaves.

A lot of people coming through the Underground Railroad

and people coming on ships into the harbor,

and we're descendants of those people,

and I feel very, very honored

that I am part of that strong, strong family

of black loyalists.

In the early '40s, they started to gather together.

Well, you know how people are.

They gather around their family and whatever.

And people started to build their homes around each other.

In the late '40s, uh...

they decided they were gonna put... it was called a dump.

Where everything went. Nothing was sorted.

All the garbage from surrounding areas,

Shelburne, and Shelburne municipality, all went there.

There was things like garbage from the hospital.

In other words, there would be body parts, probably.

Uh, there were things from the navy base,

that we don't know what was dumped there.

Things from the shipyards, like paint and oil.

There were old cars.

There was food from stores,

there were animals dumped there,

like dead animals.

There was anything and everything...

was dumped on that dump.

They had to get rid of it because it was like a mountain of garbage.

So they set it afire.

And that would burn for days and days...

on end, and the smell would be horrendous.

And the smoke

would cover you.

You couldn't open your windows.

I remember that, um...

someone would say, "Oh, the dump's afire."

First thing, the seagulls would start yelling really loud.

And they would be gone.

And then the smoke would be just like a black cloud.

And then the soot, when it started to die down

or it started to rain, the soot would be all over everything.

I remember getting up and going to school in the morning

and we'd be lucky if we got to school

without, uh, smelling like

we'd been in some kind of, uh...

chemical warfare.

And then get to school

and then have the teacher say,

uh...

"Did you wash this morning?"

Was horrible.

We have been drinking water