By Stephen Vance, Staff
At their October 13 meeting, Meaford’s council voted in favour of becoming a ‘Blue Dot’ community.
The idea was first brought to council by Councillor Jaden Calvert in March, and is aimed at ensuring environmental rights for the community.
The Blue Dot movement is a grassroots movement launched by the David Suzuki Foundation that aims to see the right to a healthy environmental, including the rights to fresh air, clean water, and safe food, enshrined in our Canadian constitution.
The Blue Dot website explains that, “the intention is that as more communities call for action from upper levels of government, the provinces will be approached to follow suit and pass environmental bill of rights. When seven out of ten provinces representing more than 50 percent of the Canadian population have recognized our right to a healthy environment, then we turn toward the ultimate goal: amending the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
85,529 Canadians have joined their local Blue Dot movement, and 89 municipal governments have passed declarations recognizing the right to fresh air, clean water, and healthy food.
The staff report to council on the issue suggested that the goals and intent of the Blue Dot movement are aligned with Meaford’s established policies.
“Based upon the discussion and analysis provided within this report, Staff are generally of the opinion that a declaration of environmental rights by the Municipality of Meaford would be generally aligned with the Municipal mission, vision and values and consistent with the policy objectives of the Municipality of Meaford Official Plan,” said staff in their report. “A municipal declaration of environmental rights is a commitment to decision-making principles that will protect, fulfill and promote the right to a healthy environment. By supporting a Municipality of Meaford Declaration of Environmental Rights, Council commits to act, within its jurisdiction, in a manner which upholds environmental rights and factor said rights into all decision making. Through this declaration, Council additionally would commit to reviewing the implementation status of ‘Sustainable Meaford’ and related policy objectives of the Official Plan.”
