June 5, 2024

FREDERICTON - Green Party Leader David Coon’s Bill 19: An Act Respecting the Right to a Healthy Environment will be debated at 2nd reading in the Legislative Assembly Thursday afternoon. The bill is aimed at protecting the health of New Brunswickers from pollution and other environmental hazards.

"The laws on the books today are just not up to the job of protecting New Brunswickers from industrial environmental hazards," said Coon. “A clean and healthy environment must be treated as a human right, and that’s why I’m proposing a new law to make this happen.”

Coon’s bill is the result of years of work by the NB Environmental Network’s “Environmental Rights Caucus.” This work has been endorsed by dozens of stakeholders including the New Brunswick Nurses Union, the New Brunswick Medical Society and NB Lung.

“More and more research, including here in New Brunswick, is showing that environmental factors are contributing to our high rates of cancer and neurological diseases like Multiple Sclerosis and ALS,” added Coon. “It's time to embrace the power of prevention and put the health of New Brunswickers and the environment that sustains us first.”

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