Hunger strike for Sydney Tar Ponds families

Elizabeth May's 2-week Parliament Hill fast - with no exit strategy - for "Canada's Love Canal" victims
 

  OTTAWA: Writer, activist and Sierra Club director Elizabeth May is nearing the two-week mark of a hunger strike calling for action to save the families whose health is imperilled by living near the Sydney Tar Ponds - North America's largest toxic waste site - in Sydney, Nova Scotia.
  May wants to "be a daily reminder to members of Parliament" of the extreme hazards faced by the 17 families on Frederick Street. She got to know these families when she researched Frederick Street - Living and Dying on Canada's Love Canal, a book co-written with Maude Barlow. The families' health is suffering and endangered by the dump, which has been in the national news since the Frederick Street Brook, which runs directly behind the houses, started to ooze a yellow-colored "goo" from its banks.
  "Maude and I really believed when the book came out that the documentation of state-sponsored crime would be so devastating that it wouold cause governments to act responsibly. I was devastated to see that nothing has changed."
  Interviewed by cell phone May 10, May says it's been tough to get media publicity for her hunger strike. "A lot of media disapprove of hunger strikes as a technique," she says, adding that the Globe and Mail has an actual policy against covering them. "I have no exit strategy" from the strike, she says, in the case that federal action is not forthcoming. Until then, she lives on water and gatorade.
  May, herself a Cape Bretoner, says her strike was more motivated by personal conviction than tactical considerations. "it was a decision I reached very personally," she says. "I couldn't stand any longer to see the people I know in Sydney continue to bring up their children in toxic waste." She wants to see the federal government stop stalling and move the affected families out of the area.
  She urges Canadians to contact health minister Alan Rock at rock.a@parl.gc.ca (phone: 613 957 0200) and environment minister David Anderson (anderson.d@parl.gc.ca - 613 997 1441) to call for action.

For more info:
  www.sierraclub.ca/national
  www.sierraclub.ca/stp
  www.geocities.com/RainForest/Canopy/2727/pic.html

Posted: May 14, 2001

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