
For a brief moment in June, a First Nations-led blockade of a burst effluent pipe in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, occupied a blip on the national news cycle. An effluent spill, likely in the tens of millions of litres, had covered a portion of a traditional Mi'kmaw burial ground, and had also flowed into the adjacent Pictou Harbour. I reported on it for VICE at the time.
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Disturbingly, Pictou County displays a higher incidence of stillbirths and infant deaths than the rest of Nova Scotia. The ratio of live births is also a troubling phenomenon, not commonly seen even on a global scale. For every healthy girl child born in Pictou County, there are 1.26 boy children born. The global rate is approximately 1:1.05.
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