In June of this year, the first amendments in 20 years were made to the Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA). For the first time, Canadians have a federally recognized right to a healthy environment.
It is an unfortunate coincidence the government promised this months before a federal court overturned a ban on single-use plastics, including bags, straws and cutlery, just this month.
According to a statement by Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault and Arif Virani, the minister of justice and attorney general of Canada, plastic pollution is “choking our wildlife, clogging our waterways and degrading our natural environment.”
According to Ontario Nature, only nine per cent of plastic in Canada is recycled. The rest ends up on our land or in our waters. As it slowly decomposes, it releases toxic chemicals that harm wildlife and people.
It seems like the federal Conservatives do not care one bit. Pierre Poilievre has claimed plastic is safe and the government wants to ban all plastics, which is just not true.
While Bill S-5 is a giant step forward, the legislation on its own is not perfect. There are good aspects of the bill.
A key component of the amendments is their commitment to environmental justice. Part of this is reducing impacts on vulnerable people that happen to them more often than others, which the Act explicitly stipulates the government do.
Vulnerable people are defined in the Act as more likely to experience environment-related negative health impacts, such as pregnant people, children, unhealthy people, and people living in areas with high pollution.
According to a December 2020 study by the University of British Columbia, the low-income residents of Toronto experience more impacts of air pollution.
There are regulations targeting people in specified areas to help high-risk communities from pollution sources. The government amended subsection 2(1) of the Act by stipulating avoiding negative effects that affect vulnerable people more than others.
Part of the Act also mandates Ministers from Environment and Climate Change Canada, and ministers of health, to conduct risk assessments of vulnerable people and environments. This will include biomonitoring surveys to find connections between toxic substances in the environment and health issues.
The Act is precautionary. It dismisses the argument that there is no certain scientific evidence that something is dangerous to the environment means there should not be affordable measures taken to prevent potentially undoable harm.
In light of this, there must be a “Watch List” looked after by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. This identifies potentially hazardous substances and would discourage economic stakeholders, consumers, manufacturers, and importers, from choosing the wrong ones if a change is made.
This would stop something such as a business replacing one harmful chemical with one that turned out to be harmful as well.
If they are concerned, any Canadians can request Environment and Climate Change Canada to assess a chemical, and the ministers must at least respond. The government must also come up with risk management measures if a substance is considered to be potentially dangerous.
The Act also takes into account intergenerational equity, which means we must meet our own needs while not risking the needs of future generations.
Leave the world in a better state than you found it.