HALIFAX—Ellen Page used a late-night TV appearance on Thursday to lambaste conservative politicians in the U.S. and decry environmental racism in her home province in Canada.

In an emotional conversation with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show, the actress — originally from Halifax — made an example of Nova Scotia when Colbert asked her to explain what environmental racism is.

Page said that environmental degradation “disproportionately affects people of colour” and pointed to cases in Nova Scotia to make her point.

She told Colbert that there’s “a pulp mill in Pictou, Nova Scotia, that’s been there forever and has destroyed the environment and the land of the First Nations people.”

Page and Colbert arrived at the topic after he mentioned her involvement “in a lot of environmental causes.”

The actress has been unabashed in her opposition to the flushing of effluent from the Northern Pulp mill into Boat Harbour — an issue that coincidentally hit a milestone on the same day as Page’s appearance on The Late Show.

Northern Pulp, which has been operating since 1967, was mandated by the provincial government to find another way to treat its effluent by Jan. 31, 2020. Despite the company saying on Thursday that it needs a one-year extension, the people of Pictou Landing First Nation celebrated the one-year countdown after calling for changes to the mill’s operations for several decades.

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Without specifying a location, Page also said that Nova Scotia has a “disproportionate amount of landfills that are placed next to communities of people of colour.”

Page and Colbert’s nearly 10-minute conversation began with the topic of equality and representation in Hollywood — something that Page has advocated throughout her career but especially since coming out publicly as gay in 2014.

She told Colbert that she recently celebrated the first anniversary of her marriage to fellow Canadian Emma Portner, and after calling out environmental injustice in Nova Scotia, Page circled back to LGBTQ rights in the U.S., where she now lives.

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“Sorry, I’m like really fired up tonight,” she told Colbert, “but it feels impossible to not feel this way right now with the president and the vice-president, Mike Pence, who wishes I couldn’t be married.”

Video of the interview has gone viral, with many Americans focusing on Page’s slamming of Pence; she said the former Indiana governor wanted to ban same-sex marriage in his home state and “believes in conversion therapy.”

Page appeared close to tears as she wrapped up the sprawling interview.

The actress was purportedly on the late-night talk show to promote her upcoming TV series, The Umbrella Academy, but she and Colbert didn’t get around to talking about it, save for a quick plug from the host in the final moments of the segment.

There are plenty of celebrities who, like Page, use their public platforms to advocate for social, political or environmental change. Howard Ramos, a sociology professor at Dalhousie University, said that in some instances, celebrity intervention can detract from grassroots movements by diluting or misrepresenting the message.

But in this case, he said, “it’s a good thing.”

“(Page) has progressive politics, and it’s nice to see that she takes her position as a public figure to advance the discussion of her progressive politics,” Ramos said in an interview.

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“It broadens the political discussion, the advocacy discussion to a popular audience.”

Without Page, it’s not likely that Colbert’s international audience would have ever heard about the pollution at Boat Harbour, Ramos argued.

He said she isn’t a perfect advocate for Pictou Landing, since she no longer lives in the province or spends time in the areas impacted by the mill, but he said her words stand to “raise the profile” of those who are more closely connected.

StarMetro asked for Premier Stephen McNeil’s response to Page’s remarks.

In an email, spokesperson David Jackson said: “Premier McNeil and this government have been clear that it’s unacceptable the community of Pictou Landing has had to live with the waste flow into Boat Harbour for decades. That’s why government is taking action — passing legislation in 2015 to close the Boat Harbour effluent treatment facility early and planning for the cleanup of Boat Harbour.”

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