The Right to a Healthy Environment
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Four Steps to Make it Matter in CEPA Reform
Share your priorities with Senators and Ministers
The Right to a Healthy Environment is a tall order! This is a centrepiece of proposed updates to Canada’s premier law to protect the environment, 23 years since it was passed.
Bill S-5: Strengthening Environmental Protection for a Healthier Canada Act, amending the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA), falls short of enshrining the Right to a Healthy Environment for Canadians. Bill S-5 was introduced in second reading, and debate is ongoing.
The world has changed, and a lot has been learned since CEPA came into force a generation ago. More is needed to slow and turn the tide of environmental breakdown — crises of climate, biodiversity, and chronic diseases and cancer.
We invite you to consider the four points below, and write to urge Bill S-5 sponsor Senator Kutcher, your province’s Senators, as well as Minister Duclos (Health) and Minister Guilbeault (Environment and Climate Change) to fix Bill S-5, to give the Right to a Healthy Environment a chance of success in protecting the health of Canadians.
We Must Do More.
Here is what’s needed:
1. Apply a climate lens.
To advance low-impact options and reduce waste.
2. Regulate non-ionizing radiation used in telecommunications.
There is no Canadian law or policy addressing environmental effects of “wireless radiation.” Radiation for wireless communications is bioactive, and levels are quintillions of times higher than historical naturally low levels.
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( FIND OUT MORE about how wireless radiation may well be
a co-factor, along with pesticides and climate change,
in declining populations of insects and birds. )
3. Catch up with a generation of science and experience.
Improve scientific methods, data requirements and decision-making, to:
- Detect and act on harmful exposures early rather than waiting for evidence of harm in humans, with better scientific review, data and information infrastructure.
- Protect vulnerable populations and workers.
- Declare that substances that mimic hormones (endocrine disruptors) are “toxic,” along with mutagens, carcinogens and reproductive toxins.
Use precautionary approaches:
- Consider Hazard versus Risk, especially when exposure is uncertain.
- Consider Essentiality when determining Substitutions, for all substances of potential concern.
- Require least-toxic solutions (including doing without).
Regulate “look-alike” chemicals as groups or classes rather than substituting with a similar chemical that is also harmful (e.g., bisphenols, flame retardants, fluorinated chemicals, phthalates).
Prevent genetic pollution via genetically modified organisms.
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4. Don’t go backwards.
A regressive amendment, that might even jeopardize the constitutionality of the law, is to create a two-tier list of “toxic” chemicals.
Instead, retain and improve existing authority in CEPA for:
- Virtual elimination of toxic substances;
- Geographic targeting of regulatory authority; and
- Identifying substances as “toxic.”
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So that there is hope that Bill S-5 will achieve
The Right to a Healthy Environment
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