On the night of May 11 we dropped a banner, reading "Kill Environmental Racism Not Bill 111 - NS LIBERALS = RACIST GARBAGE", on Upper Water Street, in the vicinity of the offices Nova Scotia Liberal Party, Province house, and across the street from the local RBC HQ – recipients of a $22 million handout in the recent Liberal budget.

We did this as a small gesture of solidarity with communities facing environmental racism throughout Nova Scotia. We also did this to express our outrage at the death of Bill 111, which called for more community consultation around issues of environmental racism, at the hands of Minister of Environment Randy Delorey.

Environmental racism is the disproportionate location of polluting industries, waste disposal sites and other environmental hazards close to racially marginalized communities. The destruction of Africville is probably the most well known case of environmental racism in Nova Scotia, but similar processes continue to this day in communities like Lincolnville and Acadia First Nation.

Bill 111 was intended to curb this pattern. While we feel that the measures in the bill are not sufficient (community consultation all too often amounts to little more than lip service) the Liberal Environment Minister's decision to bury the bill indicates blatant disregard for the needs of marginalized communities in Nova Scotia. In short, the government won't even pretend to listen.

Of course, this comes as no surprise to us: the Liberals, like all politicians, do not really represent or care about our communities.

Their treachery will not go unpunished.

We are getting organized.

-some anarchists

Image at: http://tinypic.com/r/24b0n44/8

PS. We are in no way affiliated with the Enrich Project, but owe much of our understanding of environmental racism in Nova Scotia to their organizational and educational efforts. To learn more about this issue, we highly recommend visiting enrichproject.org