Premier François Legault, I am a mother and a pediatrician who takes the health of our children to heart. I know that, like me, you are concerned about the future of our beautiful province and its population, since since the start of the COVID epidemic, you and your team have been doing your best to ensure the health of all Quebecers. Although you can be blamed for a few failures, I agree that your intentions are benevolent. However, COVID has unfortunately overshadowed other duties for which we need to roll up our sleeves as soon as possible.
Indeed, climate issues require us to think about the future of our young adults, our teenagers and our little ones who did not ask to be born on a planet threatened by climate change. As the World Health Organization (WHO) and, closer to us, the Canadian Pediatric Society remind us, if we do not give a masterful change in our lifestyle and consumption habits, our beautiful nature which ensures the survival of all living species, including our own, is doomed.
Natural disasters are accelerating — torrential rains, floods, drought in rivers and agricultural land, crop failure, heat waves, extreme cold — as well as all the deleterious effects on the health and safety of our young people and of our elders. Because the same goes for climate change as for COVID: it is the most vulnerable who are the most affected.
Also, to curb climate change resulting from the production of greenhouse gases, we must change our consumption habits, including our means of transport. It doesn’t make sense to increase our car fleet, which has already multiplied in recent decades, at the expense of cleaner air and green spaces for our children.
Lung diseases
The WHO, the Canadian Pediatric Society and the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) confirm it: there are scientifically proven links between the increased impact of asthma in our children and adolescents, chronic lung diseases in adults, cardiovascular diseases affecting them, as well as urban pollution. Said pollution of cities depends for the most part on the production of the combustion of fossil energy emitted by motorized transport. So more cars will lead to more pollution and more respiratory diseases.
But if it were only that… More and more studies highlight a more than probable link between certain cancers and pollution. The same cancers that are associated with tobacco. What’s more, climate change, with floods, droughts and, possibly, winter storms, creates insecurity and psychological stress, or anxiety.
We have seen it with COVID, our young people are dependent on their social ties with their peers, but also with their families. Environmental safety is officially recognized as a determinant of health, which, to put it another way, corresponds to a child’s chances of happiness and success, from birth to majority. Thus, a child becomes vulnerable when what he needs, such as a roof, a little greenery to play in, clean air to breathe fresh air and a school where he can flourish among other children, is threatened, then he becomes anxious.
Even without climate change, due to the demands of modern life, amplified since COVID, our young people are already too affected by this pathology called anxiety. The accelerating climatic changes will further deteriorate the mental health of our children. So what are we waiting for to create more green parks in our cities for them to walk in, to decrease the number of cars in the city centers and to increase the use of public transport, all in order to reduce the pollution that afflicts them? Just because it’s odorless and soundproof doesn’t mean it’s less real…
I beg you, Mr. Prime Minister, to prevent, while there is still time, the increase in the number of cars in the cities by building more roads. Studies have proven it; building more roads will only increase the number of cars driving on them and will lead, in the more or less long term, to more health problems for our children. Is this the Quebec we want to build? A retrograde Quebec?
It seems to me that as Prime Minister you can see past a third link that will only make things worse. Let’s give ourselves the means of our ambitions, think big, take the necessary turn for the future of our children. Since an environment that is as healthy as possible is the best guarantee for the present and future health of all children in Quebec. And isn’t that, Prime Minister, the best future that every parent should want for their children?