A group of doctors is calling on the province to scrap proposed legislation that would lift bans on drilling for natural gas and exploring for uranium deposits.
The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment says fracking and mining for uranium have serious health impacts, including an increased risk of cancer.
Doctor Laurette Geldenhuys is a pathologist. She’s called Nova Scotia home for more than 20 years.
“I love the province and its people and its natural beauty, but I would seriously consider moving if fracking or uranium mining starts to happen in our beautiful province,” Geldenhuys told reporters at a media conference setup by the Nova Scotia NDP on Monday.
The provincial government proposed the legislation to help spur the economy in the face of tariff threats from the United States. Cabinet ministers have said uranium mining and fracking would be done safely and by following all necessary environmental regulations.
But Geldenhuys says there’s no way to do these things safely.
She referenced several studies that link uranium mining and fracking to a multitude of cancers.
One study, published in the peer-reviewed, scientific journal, Environmental Health Perspectives, looked at whether there was a link between fracking wells and acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common form of blood cancer in children. The researchers examined 405 children, aged 2 to 7, who had the cancer and 2,080 who did not, all in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.
They found that children within 2 km of fracking wells were 2.8 times more likely to develop the cancer during the perinatal period, which the study defined as 3 months prior to conception until birth.
In that case, the wells were close to the homes of the people affected. The province has not yet said where fracking would happen.
Nancy Covington, a retired family doctor, said uranium mining releases radon, a radioactive gas that’s one of the leading causes of lung cancer, second only to cigarettes. She said the watersheds near mines in Saskatchewan and in Ontario are still contaminated.
But even though they may be in remote areas, she said that can contaminate the food chain. She said some caribou would eat contaminated food, and if hunters ate the caribou, then they would have an increased risk of cancer.
Covington said the mining also spreads radioactive dust particles.
“They get blown around. We know we have lots of wind. They get into water. They would absolutely get into wells,” she said.
At the media conference, NDP leader Claudia Chender called on the government to uphold the bans. She said it doesn’t make sense to justify lifting the bans as a way to stimulate the economy and combat potential tariffs from the United States.
“The conversation about lifting resource bans will not do anything to ameliorate that immediate concern,” she said.
“But in fact, what we need to do is make sure that our traditional industries and our existing businesses are able to withstand economic shock, and we’ve heard precious little about that.”
The province recently introduced a bill that would remove barriers to interprovincial trade, but other provinces need to sign on with similar rules for it to work.
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