The climate crisis isn’t waiting: The case for passing Bill 19

In Canada, a clean and healthy environment is not a guaranteed right for everyone. When faced with environmental risks or damage, individuals often struggle to take effective action without laws that clearly define environmental protections and procedures. Legislation like New Brunswick’s Bill 19 offers hope, providing a path to ensure these essential rights are recognized and upheld.

In March this year, Green Party Leader David Coon introduced Bill 19, “An Act Respecting the Right to a Healthy Environment,” marking a significant step toward modernizing environmental legislation in New Brunswick. The bill aims to secure the human right to a healthy, ecologically balanced environment for all residents of the province.

This is urgent and deeply important: New Brunswick is already living through the realities of the climate crisis. Communities are facing more frequent flooding, stronger hurricanes, destructive wildfires, and accelerating coastal erosion. Rising temperatures are stressing forests, fisheries, and the ecosystems we depend on. These are not distant possibilities — they are unfolding now, and without stronger laws we remain unprepared for what’s ahead.

The bill was first introduced in the New Brunswick legislature almost two years ago, in December 2023 by David Coon. However it died on the Order Paper without debate in June 2024 because of the scheduled Provincial election.

When it was reintroduced in March this year, politicians took note of all of the supporters in the gallery. The bill was referred to the Legislative Assembly’s Standing Committee on Law Amendments for further study and the public hearings happened on September 18 and 19.

The arrival of Bill 19 to Law Amendments marks the culmination of years of work by the Environmental Rights Caucus of the New Brunswick Environmental Network, in collaboration with East Coast Environmental Law.

The Passamaquoddy Nation supports Bill 19, highlighting the need for environmental governance that safeguards ecosystems for future generations. The Nation urges New Brunswick to modernize its environmental laws with courage and integrity, noting that current regulations often fall short of international standards recognized by Indigenous peoples, scientists, and organizations like the United Nations.

On September 18 Chief Hugh Akagi appeared before the Standing Committee on Law Amendments to speak on Bill 19. He urged shifting the conversation from extraction and treating nature as “resources” to a focus on restoration. The environment, he emphasized, has already been severely damaged — ecosystems collapsed, species lost, and efforts to merely reduce harm have fallen short. What is needed now is repair: restoring the land and its creatures, ending destructive practices, and using Bill 19 as a tool to heal rather than simply limit further damage.

The health of the land is inseparable from the health of people. Clean water, fresh air, and the living soil that feeds our plants and animals are not separate from our own well-being — they sustain us in body, mind, and spirit. Thus, protecting the Earth is not only a matter of survival — it is a responsibility to our children, the generations yet to come, and all life on this planet.

Bill 19 is an important step toward recognizing the right to a healthy environment in New Brunswick. But to ensure it reaches its full potential, certain concerns and considerations must be addressed. The following sections outline areas where the bill could be strengthened, clarified, or expanded.

Recognizing the right to a healthy environment is a crucial milestone, yet rights alone are insufficient without accountability and enforcement. To make the bill truly effective, it should clearly define government and industry responsibilities and include transparent, enforceable penalties for violations. This would ensure these rights have real impact.

Too often, environmental laws have been far too permissive with industries, allowing those responsible for most pollution to operate with minimal accountability. This approach has put communities, ecosystems, and future generations at risk. We need stronger regulations and stricter oversight to ensure that industries take full responsibility for their environmental impact.

It is also important to recognize that environmental harm doesn’t affect all communities equally. Marginalized, rural, and Indigenous communities often face the greatest impacts. Bill 19 should strengthen protections not only to safeguard ecosystems but also to promote fairness and justice, ensuring that environmental laws do not perpetuate environmental racism in the province.

Another pressing topic is that we can no longer be sidetracked by promises of nuclear energy. Despite decades of investment, nuclear power remains unreliable, expensive, and leaves behind a long-lasting burden of radioactive waste hazardous for hundreds of thousands of years.

In contrast, renewable energy sources like wind and solar are cleaner, more sustainable, and increasingly cost-effective. According to the United Nations, they emit little to no greenhouse gases, are readily available, and in most cases, are cheaper than fossil fuels. Bill 19 should support a just transition toward truly clean energy — renewables that do not leave behind radioactive waste.

Finally, Bill 19 must require the assessment of cumulative effects and acknowledge the deep interconnectedness of land, water, and life. Current environmental assessments often evaluate projects in isolation, overlooking how multiple developments together can create much larger, long-term harms.

This failure to account for cumulative effects is precisely why we find ourselves facing a climate and ecological crisis. By considering projects in isolation, past policies have allowed greenhouse gas emissions to pile up, ecosystems to be fragmented, and pollution to accumulate unchecked.

Beyond the technical details of the bill, its success ultimately depends on meaningful engagement with those it aims to protect. Environmental policy is most effective when it reflects the lived experiences, knowledge, and values of those who interact with the land and waters daily. With open dialogue and opportunities for input from Indigenous communities, local residents, and experts, Bill 19 can move beyond a paper promise to become an active framework that protects the environment and advances justice for all.

The choices New Brunswick makes now will echo far into the future. Bill 19 offers a chance to move beyond outdated policies and weak protections, toward a vision of environmental stewardship rooted in justice, accountability, and respect for all life. By strengthening this legislation and ensuring it is not only passed but meaningfully enforced, we can affirm that a healthy environment is not a privilege for the few but a fundamental right for everyone.

Mayara Gonçalves e Lima works with the Passamaquoddy Recognition Group Inc., focusing on nuclear energy. Their work combines environmental advocacy with efforts to ensure that the voice of the Passamaquoddy Nation is heard and respected in decisions that impact their land, waters, and future.