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June
21, 2003
ROBERT KENNEDY JR SPEAKS ON RED HILL
The
following is a excerpt from the transcript of Mr. Kennedy's
public address, June 21 2003 at Bambu by the Lake in Toronto.
The speech marked the end of the 2003 Waterkeeper Alliance
International Conference.
 "I
was down in Hamilton, there are fourteen rivers that flow
through Hamilton and each and every one of them have been
buried except one, which is the Red Hill Creek and they’re
now going to put an expressway over that and bury it.
Here in Toronto people have come to their senses and they’re
saying the same thing they’re saying in Los Angelos,
we have turned these rivers into culverts. And in Toronto
and California and in cities all over the place, they’re
tearing up the culverts and returning the rivers to the
public.
In Hamilton they’re still burying them and this is
an old way of thinking. We have lost touch with the waterways.
The Waterkeeper notion is that we have to re-establish the
public’s right to use those waterways. We put a boat
out on the waterways as a constant reminder that those waters
are owned by the public. They are owned by the people; we
have a right to use them and no one has the right to misuse
them."
Entire
transcript available here.
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