To fulfill the intent of the National Strategy Respecting Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice Act and ensure durable, community led environmental justice outcomes, the Government of Canada should prioritize the following actions.

A) Governance and accountability

1. Embed anti colonial, intersectional environmental justice in federal decision making
Formally adopt a definition of environmental justice that is anti colonial, intersectional, and grounded in the needs, knowledges and leadership of structurally marginalized communities, including Indigenous, Black and other racialized communities, immigrants and newcomers, and low income communities.

2. Operationalize the five core dimensions of environmental justice across federal processes
Explicitly recognize distributive, procedural, recognitional, epistemic and healing justice in federal decision making, and integrate these concepts into environmental, health, housing and infrastructure policies, program design, and accountability frameworks.

3. Create a mandatory Environmental Justice Analysis (EJA) tool for all federal departments
Develop and implement an Environmental Justice Analysis tool, modelled on GBA Plus, that is required for new and renewed policies, programs, regulations and major funding decisions, including Memoranda to Cabinet and Treasury Board submissions.

4. Establish a permanent environmental justice accountability body
Create an independent advisory and accountability body, such as a National Environmental Justice Council or Secretariat, with representation from Indigenous communities, racialized communities and youth led organizations. This body should monitor progress, advise on implementation, and help prevent regression in environmental justice commitments as governments change.

5. Ensure Indigenous perspectives are included at every stage of the Strategy
Co design governance and implementation mechanisms with First Nations, Inuit and Métis partners, including guaranteed Indigenous leadership within any advisory or oversight structures created under the Strategy.

B) Data, research and monitoring

6. Expand community centred research and biomonitoring in impacted communities
Implement and fund long term research and biomonitoring programs in communities disproportionately affected by environmental hazards, with particular attention to Indigenous communities, racialized communities, immigrants and newcomers. Programs must be co designed with communities and support community owned data. These research programs should be tied to the Strategy’s statutory requirement to ‘examine the link between race, socioeconomic status and environmental risk’ under section 3(3)(a). Embedding this mandate directly into program terms and conditions would ensure continuity across future governments.

7. Develop a national environmental justice hazards and health dashboard
Create a public, accessible dashboard that consolidates existing federal datasets to show the locations of environmental hazards, their environmental and community health impacts, and real time status updates on mitigation and enforcement actions. This dashboard should be designed to satisfy section 3(3)(a)(ii) of the Act, which requires the Strategy to provide information and statistics about environmental hazards. To increase federal accountability, ECCC should commit to annual public reporting on hazard mitigation progress and clearly identify lead departments for every site-specific follow-up action.

C) Community engagement, communications and access to support

8. Provide clear, navigable pathways for communities to reach the right government body
Identify and publicly communicate simple, accessible pathways that allow communities to report environmental injustices and reach the department or level of government responsible for acting. This must include clear jurisdictional guidance and service standards for response times.

9. Designate federal staff to support communities through reporting and complaints processes
Assign and train dedicated staff who can guide communities step by step through reporting pathways, ensure their concerns are directed to the correct authority, and provide timely updates on progress.

10. Use trusted, accessible communications channels similar to those used for censuses and elections
Employ outreach methods such as mailed letters, targeted public notices, telephone outreach and community based communication partners to inform residents about environmental hazards, consumer and product safety, and available reporting pathways.

11. Fund intergenerational, accessible, community led consultation and communication processes
Provide dedicated funding for intergenerational, accessible, community led and community serving consultations, communications and education that support both the development and implementation of environmental justice programming under the Strategy. This must include resourcing Indigenous-led and other community-based organizations, including those rooted in youth leadership, that already have trusted relationships with impacted communities.

D) Funding and capacity for community led environmental justice

12. Address funding gaps for culturally appropriate community serving organizations
Create and expand funding programs that provide stable, multi year, core funding for culturally appropriate organizations that serve communities facing environmental injustices, so that they have the resources required to support community organizing, advocacy, research and service delivery.

13. Align federal investments with environmental justice outcomes
Ensure that federal funding, procurement and economic development programs are screened for their environmental justice impacts, and that investments explicitly prioritize communities that have been historically harmed or excluded, while phasing out support for high polluting and harmful industries.