Thank you.
The emission of toxic substances to the environment is a growing problem globally, as well as in Canada. The Canadian Environmental Law Association focused on the emission of cancer-causing agents to illustrate that Bill S-5 will not solve the problem in Canada, unless the bill improves the approach of the act to pollution prevention.
CELA analyzed 15 years of national pollution data from 2006 to 2020. These 15 years coincide with the period the chemicals management plan was in force under CEPA. We reviewed the data for 32 cancer-causing agents listed in CEPA's schedule 1 list of toxic substances. What we found nationally was that while federal requirements are reducing by millions of kilograms on-site air releases of these chemicals, on-site disposal and land releases of the same chemicals have been dramatically increasing in the tens of millions of kilograms.
For certain substances, the trends are even more dramatic. For example, we found in Quebec with respect to arsenic that on-site air emissions decreased 8% during the period of 2006 to 2020. However, on-site disposal and land releases of arsenic increased by almost 2,000%.
The bottom line is that moving a carcinogen from one environmental pathway—air—to another—land—does not represent progress in protecting human health and the environment. It merely represents putting a different part of the environment and a different group of people at risk.
What is needed is a strategy of prevention and the elimination of schedule 1 toxic substances from Canadian commerce to the maximum extent possible. This was the expectation for CEPA, as described in a 1995 House standing environment committee report.
There are three things wrong with CEPA that Bill S-5 does not correct on the issue of pollution prevention.
First, pollution prevention is discretionary, not mandatory, for toxic substances listed in schedule 1. This has resulted in only one-sixth of all substances in the schedule in the last 20 years having a pollution prevention plan. It's a rate that, if continued, will mean that all the existing toxic substances in schedule 1 will not have a plan until the 22nd century.
Second, pollution prevention is meant to control the creation and use of toxic substances. However, because of the approach that has been taken, pollution abatement has become the predominant measure employed by industry That is, only emission concentrations of a substance are sought to be controlled. The 1995 House standing environment committee report warned against doing this. The result has allowed such substances to stay in Canadian commerce and the environment.
Third, Bill S-5 does not make the substitution of safer alternatives to toxic substances a central focus of the amendments to the act, thus placing Canadians and the environment at risk, and Canada at a disadvantage relative to other countries that have done so.
How should Bill S-5 amend CEPA?
First, make pollution prevention mandatory for all chemicals that Canada has designated as toxic under the law, and do not employ pollution abatement as a substitute for pollution prevention under part 4. Second, enshrine the analysis of safer alternatives to chemicals as a central pillar of CEPA—