Trina Doll regards herself as a regular person.
She is moving outside her comfort zone in order to gain support for Canadian citizens’ rights to live in a healthy environment – something that has been written into the charter of rights of 110 countries, but not Canada.
A few months ago, Doll’s daughter sent her an email with a link to David Suzuki’s Blue Dot Movement, a grassroots project intended to encourage the federal government to engender the right in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
As her daughter did, Doll signed the online petition and then took a big step – she agreed to join the movement and make the petition available in Salmon Arm.
Doll says she felt she needed to get involved after hearing some of the alarming facts about the planet in an online video at bluedot.ca:
“At any time in Canada there are more than 1,000 boil-water advisories and the government has admitted that one in two Canadians lives in areas with unsafe levels of air pollution.
“Canada is peppered with toxic hotspots left over from irresponsible and poorly regulated industrial activities that will take years to clean up and cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
“Change is possible, but it means spreading the word and engaging others in what becomes a movement,” says Suzuki, noting the need for stronger environmental laws, better enforcement of existing laws and an end to having today’s laws rolled back. “Things are only impossible until someone decides they are not.”
Doll has had copies of the petition at the Mall at Piccadilly and is hoping city council will make a declaration on the rights of citizens to a healthy environment.
“We’re trying to get the word out,” she says. “This is part of a huge movement in cities across Canada.”
Doll is hoping to get support from School District #83 as well.
“My dad is very ill and it’s supposed to be the effects of exposure to chemicals in a long career in a sawmill,” she says. “I want to try to empower children like the ones in The Pas, Manitoba where kids in a middle school made a presentation and the mayor enacted the declaration.”
Doll will have the petition available from 9:30 a.m. to noon Dec. 17, Monday Dec. 22 and Tuesday, Dec. 23 at the Mall at Piccadilly.
She is also supporting the Ranchero School parent advisory committee by taking part in a Christmas wrapping program at Centenoka Park Mall Thursday, Dec. 18 from 9:30 to noon and Sunday, Dec. 21 from 2:30 to 5 p.m.
Anyone interested in getting involved with the Blue Dot Movement, may get in touch with Doll at Doll_gtr@telus.net.