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Heat-related deaths, B.C. wildfires spur Greater Victoria doctors’ call to end pipeline construction

Local physicians join international protest with banner over Pat Bay Highway on Wednesday morning
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Deaths attributed to record high temperatures around B.C., as well as wildfires that continue to burn have prompted physicians groups in B.C. and Washington State to call for an end to construction on the Trans-Mountain Pipeline. Greater Victoria doctors will unfurl a banner over the Pat Bay Highway on Wednesday morning in Saanich. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)

On the heels of an unprecedented heatwave in Greater Victoria and elsewhere in B.C. and Washington State, local physicians are joining fellow doctors in Vancouver and Seattle in calling for an end to construction on the Trans Mountain Pipeline.

Greater Victoria doctors will be on the pedestrian walkway over the Pat Bay Highway near Pacific Christian School in Saanich, starting at 8 a.m. Wednesday (July 28), flying a banner to be viewed by passing motorists.

“Canada must do its part and cancel the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project,” Dr. Jonathan Down, a Greater Victoria pediatrician and president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War – Canada (IPPNW-C), said in a release.

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Pointing to the hundreds of deaths attributed to record high temperatures in B.C. alone, Down added, “the recent heat dome was evidence enough that we must act now to save lives by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

Dr. Tim Takaro, an SFU health sciences professor and retired physician, added “If the hundreds of heat-related deaths and fires raging out of control across the province are not a wake-up call for real action on climate change, we are doomed.”

Members of the Public Health Association of B.C. and the IPPNW-C will gather in Saanich, while members of Physicians for Planetary Health (Vancouver) and Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility (Seattle) will send the message in their respective cities.


 

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