Blog by Joseph F. Castrilli, Counsel, and Fe de Leon, Senior Researcher
The toxicity, pervasiveness, and longevity of PFAS chemicals is the latest Canadian environmental nightmare.
We have all witnessed a long history of “miracle” chemicals going badly awry; DDT in the 1950s and 60s; PCBs in the 1970s; chlordane in the 1980s and 1990s; and, more recently, ozone-layer eating chemicals (e.g., chlorofluorocarbons) as well as climate-warming chemicals (e.g., sulphur hexafluoride).
But along the way, until relatively recently, PFAS chemicals have largely flown under both the public’s and government’s radar. Not so much anymore.
These chemicals have for decades been manufactured, imported, processed, distributed, and used in Canadian industry and commerce. They have been emitted to air, discharged to water, and disposed of on land without adequate understanding of their environmental and human health effects. As a result, we’re all part of a long-term experiment without our consent. The time to end the experiment is past due.
Everyday we read media reports of new ways in which this ubiquitous class of chemicals has violated the integrity of the planet due to their presence in:
- major bodies of water like the Great Lakes;
- drinking water supplies;
- agricultural lands (laced with PFAS-contaminated industrial sewage sludge);
- livestock;
- food (that has come into contact with PFAS-tainted packaging materials);
- everyday consumer products including children’s toys; and
- ourselves.
We’re awash in thousands of PFAS-class chemicals and the prospect of getting free of them anytime soon seems way too distant in the future for our own good.
When Shakespeare decried “the law’s delay” he could have been describing for an audience four centuries later, the snail’s pace at which the government has tentatively, timidly, and wholly inadequately, sought to rein in the chemical industry proliferation of PFAS.
The flip side of “the law’s delay” is that the “law waits to be informed”- usually by science. Well, the law has been informed and we may be witnessing the first stirrings of widespread scientific calls for action on this troublesome chemical.
In an early September 2024, a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, organized by a University of Toronto earth sciences professor, Dr. Miriam L. Diamond, 60 Canadian scientists and medical doctors (as well as some of their colleagues from across North and South America and Europe), called upon Canada to accelerate measures to assess and control PFAS chemicals.
The letter recounted what PFAS chemicals are used for (making products resist water, stains, and heat), where they end up (everywhere), and what their effects are (increased risk of various cancers and other medical disorders, such as decreased fertility in women, and immune system dysfunction).
It also identified existing prohibitions under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA), the country’s national toxics law, on just three categories of PFAS chemicals (PFOS, PFOA, and long-chain PFCAs), but with key exceptions that allow their continued use, for example, in firefighting, which has by itself resulted in water contamination problems across the country.
The scientists and doctors further noted the status of government reform initiatives including preliminary scientific assessments that have recognized that the PFAS class of chemicals meets the requirements for toxicity under CEPA, and should be addressed as a class, not one chemical at a time, for regulatory purposes since there are thousands of them in Canadian commerce.
The letter pointed to the need for better and faster government actions and expressed concern about the failure of Canada to:
- Issue PFAS data collection notices to industry until recently, which will have the effect of delaying regulatory action for upwards of a year;
- Remove exemptions from prohibitions of the few PFAS chemicals already subject to some (but not enough) controls;
- Propose any PFAS chemicals as eligible for designation under the part of CEPA that would make them subject to prohibition from commerce;
- Identify a timeframe for imposing restrictions on non-essential uses of PFAS chemicals; and
- Establish a deadline for assessment of fluoropolymers – used to create non-stick surfaces – to determine if they should be included in the class of PFAS chemicals eligible for control under CEPA.
All these failures add up to further significant delay since the government first announced an intention to address the PFAS issue in 2021 – given current circumstances, Canadians will be lucky to see material improvement in control of PFAS chemicals by 2030, if then.
Many of the failures identified in the scientists’ letter to the Prime Minister resonate with problems CELA and other groups have had with the government’s handling of the PFAS question. From a legal standpoint, perhaps the most concerning is the government’s proposal to add PFAS chemicals only to the part of CEPA where they are not subject to prohibition from commerce. This is a counter-intuitive approach to “forever chemicals” when the idea should be, as much as possible, to end their presence in commerce and the environment, not perpetuate it through regulation.
For this and various other issues surrounding the PFAS file, the letter to the Prime Minister also had a good final suggestion – that there be parliamentary scrutiny of the PFAS question. There has not been sustained Parliamentary examination of a PFAS chemical since 2008, when virtual elimination measures for PFOS (one type of PFAS) were considered. Since then, instead of virtually eliminating dangerous chemicals, such as those in the entire PFAS family, the only thing that has been eliminated is the government’s authority to subject dangerous chemicals to virtual elimination, courtesy of 2023 amendments to CEPA.
Nonetheless, Canada’s policy must not go sideways on this issue. Sunlight is needed on the problem posed by forever chemicals. Then they need to be sunset.
Blog: Time to Sunset “Forever Chemicals”
Blog by Joseph F. Castrilli, Counsel, and Fe de Leon, Senior Researcher
The toxicity, pervasiveness, and longevity of PFAS chemicals is the latest Canadian environmental nightmare.
We have all witnessed a long history of “miracle” chemicals going badly awry; DDT in the 1950s and 60s; PCBs in the 1970s; chlordane in the 1980s and 1990s; and, more recently, ozone-layer eating chemicals (e.g., chlorofluorocarbons) as well as climate-warming chemicals (e.g., sulphur hexafluoride).
But along the way, until relatively recently, PFAS chemicals have largely flown under both the public’s and government’s radar. Not so much anymore.
These chemicals have for decades been manufactured, imported, processed, distributed, and used in Canadian industry and commerce. They have been emitted to air, discharged to water, and disposed of on land without adequate understanding of their environmental and human health effects. As a result, we’re all part of a long-term experiment without our consent. The time to end the experiment is past due.
Everyday we read media reports of new ways in which this ubiquitous class of chemicals has violated the integrity of the planet due to their presence in:
We’re awash in thousands of PFAS-class chemicals and the prospect of getting free of them anytime soon seems way too distant in the future for our own good.
When Shakespeare decried “the law’s delay” he could have been describing for an audience four centuries later, the snail’s pace at which the government has tentatively, timidly, and wholly inadequately, sought to rein in the chemical industry proliferation of PFAS.
The flip side of “the law’s delay” is that the “law waits to be informed”- usually by science. Well, the law has been informed and we may be witnessing the first stirrings of widespread scientific calls for action on this troublesome chemical.
In an early September 2024, a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, organized by a University of Toronto earth sciences professor, Dr. Miriam L. Diamond, 60 Canadian scientists and medical doctors (as well as some of their colleagues from across North and South America and Europe), called upon Canada to accelerate measures to assess and control PFAS chemicals.
The letter recounted what PFAS chemicals are used for (making products resist water, stains, and heat), where they end up (everywhere), and what their effects are (increased risk of various cancers and other medical disorders, such as decreased fertility in women, and immune system dysfunction).
It also identified existing prohibitions under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA), the country’s national toxics law, on just three categories of PFAS chemicals (PFOS, PFOA, and long-chain PFCAs), but with key exceptions that allow their continued use, for example, in firefighting, which has by itself resulted in water contamination problems across the country.
The scientists and doctors further noted the status of government reform initiatives including preliminary scientific assessments that have recognized that the PFAS class of chemicals meets the requirements for toxicity under CEPA, and should be addressed as a class, not one chemical at a time, for regulatory purposes since there are thousands of them in Canadian commerce.
The letter pointed to the need for better and faster government actions and expressed concern about the failure of Canada to:
All these failures add up to further significant delay since the government first announced an intention to address the PFAS issue in 2021 – given current circumstances, Canadians will be lucky to see material improvement in control of PFAS chemicals by 2030, if then.
Many of the failures identified in the scientists’ letter to the Prime Minister resonate with problems CELA and other groups have had with the government’s handling of the PFAS question. From a legal standpoint, perhaps the most concerning is the government’s proposal to add PFAS chemicals only to the part of CEPA where they are not subject to prohibition from commerce. This is a counter-intuitive approach to “forever chemicals” when the idea should be, as much as possible, to end their presence in commerce and the environment, not perpetuate it through regulation.
For this and various other issues surrounding the PFAS file, the letter to the Prime Minister also had a good final suggestion – that there be parliamentary scrutiny of the PFAS question. There has not been sustained Parliamentary examination of a PFAS chemical since 2008, when virtual elimination measures for PFOS (one type of PFAS) were considered. Since then, instead of virtually eliminating dangerous chemicals, such as those in the entire PFAS family, the only thing that has been eliminated is the government’s authority to subject dangerous chemicals to virtual elimination, courtesy of 2023 amendments to CEPA.
Nonetheless, Canada’s policy must not go sideways on this issue. Sunlight is needed on the problem posed by forever chemicals. Then they need to be sunset.
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