Do you have an environmental issue you would like some answers to?
Is there an environmental concern in the Similkameen that you would like to speak to higher levels of government about?
The Office of the Auditor General of Canada has an environmental petitions process which allows any resident of Canada to submit a petition to Ministers of 26 federal departments and agencies.
The petitioner can pose questions or concerns they have relating to either environmental or sustainable development matters that fall within the authority of the federal government.
Parliament introduced the environmental petitions process in 1995. The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development administers the process on behalf of the Auditor General of Canada.
“The process is a simple one,” advises Mark Lawrence, Environmental Petitions Supervisor in the Office of the Auditor General of Canada.
Similkameen residents are given the opportunity to pose questions to ministers of federal departments and agencies about environmental and sustainable development matters that fall within federal jurisdiction. Ministers are required to reply in writing to the petitioner within 120 days.
With the petitioner’s consent, the Commissioner posts both the petition and the ministerial reply on the website of the Office of the Auditor General of Canada. “This helps increase public awareness of the issues that have been raised as well as the government’s response,” Lawrence said.
Environmental petitions to date have covered a diverse range of issues affecting British Columbians such as oil tankers on the west coast, salmon farming, wild fisheries, air and water pollution, hydraulic fracturing (fracking), toxic substances and climate change.