The Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA), together with two Ontario residents from communities heavily impacted by industrial air pollution, filed a request under the Environmental Bill of Rights urging the provincial government to review and strengthen its policy on cumulative air pollution to ensure communities across the province are equally protected.
The Application for Review documents how Ontario’s cumulative effects policy has failed to improve air quality due to its narrow scope and the province’s failure to apply it in the approvals process. The policy applies to only two pollutants, two communities – the Hamilton and Sarnia areas – and only to proposals for new facilities and therefore does not address existing pollution levels.
The Application also details how the broad exemptions provided to polluters in Ontario mean some communities are unfairly exposed to higher levels of pollution, particularly low-income and Indigenous communities located near multi-facility industrial areas.
Although the Ontario government committed to reviewing the Cumulative Effects Assessment in Air Pollution policy within two years of its release in 2018, no such review has occurred in the eight years since.
Under the Environmental Bill of Rights, the government must respond to this request for a policy review within sixty days.
This publication is found on the Canadian Environmental Law Archive website; click here to open it in a new tab.
To read the summary report, click here.
For more information on CELA’s law reform work on air pollution, click here.
To see our air pollution community profiles, click here.
Application for Review of Cumulative Effects Assessment in Air Approvals under the Environmental Bill of Rights
The Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA), together with two Ontario residents from communities heavily impacted by industrial air pollution, filed a request under the Environmental Bill of Rights urging the provincial government to review and strengthen its policy on cumulative air pollution to ensure communities across the province are equally protected.
The Application for Review documents how Ontario’s cumulative effects policy has failed to improve air quality due to its narrow scope and the province’s failure to apply it in the approvals process. The policy applies to only two pollutants, two communities – the Hamilton and Sarnia areas – and only to proposals for new facilities and therefore does not address existing pollution levels.
The Application also details how the broad exemptions provided to polluters in Ontario mean some communities are unfairly exposed to higher levels of pollution, particularly low-income and Indigenous communities located near multi-facility industrial areas.
Although the Ontario government committed to reviewing the Cumulative Effects Assessment in Air Pollution policy within two years of its release in 2018, no such review has occurred in the eight years since.
Under the Environmental Bill of Rights, the government must respond to this request for a policy review within sixty days.
This publication is found on the Canadian Environmental Law Archive website; click here to open it in a new tab.
To read the summary report, click here.
For more information on CELA’s law reform work on air pollution, click here.
To see our air pollution community profiles, click here.
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