Near term priority files: Environmental protection and emergencies

Environmental emergencies

Issue

Environmental emergencies caused by the unplanned, uncontrolled, or accidental release of hazardous substances can harm the natural environment, human health, and the economy.

Background

• Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) has legislated authorities to better prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from the harmful effects of environmental emergencies.
• Due to their size or impact on the environment, approximately 1,000 to 1,500 pollution incidents reported each year in Canada constitute environmental emergencies and require ECCC’s scientific advice or oversight.
• Environmental emergencies can be highly visible and concerning to the public, and often receive significant media attention.
• Response to environmental emergencies is one of two Critical Services identified for Departmental Business Continuity Management (BCM) and is integrated with the overall Government of Canada approach to emergency management.
• When there is an environmental emergency, the National Environmental Emergencies Centre (NEEC) is the departmental 24/7 focal point for responding and coordinating the provision of ECCC’s expert advice. NEEC’s primary role is to coordinate ECCC’s technical and scientific expert advice and provide assistance, upon request, to the lead agency overseeing the responsible party’s response actions.
  • For example, NEEC coordinates the provision of advice related to weather forecasts (Meteorological Service of Canada), location of wildlife and sensitive ecosystems (Canadian Wildlife Service), and expertise on spill fate and behaviour, countermeasures and remediation options (Science and Technology Branch).
• ECCC also participates in all aspects of the emergency management cycle, to varying degrees:
  • Prevention – implements the Environmental Emergency Regulations (E2 Regulations) and provides expert advice related to accidents and malfunctions on projects subject to environmental assessment;
  • Preparedness – national and international contingency planning, preparedness training, and partnership building;
  • Response – provides 24/7 spills notification and, upon request, consolidates scientific and technical advice from departmental experts to inform responsible party (the polluter) and lead response agencies, providing them with the information needed to respond effectively;
  • Recovery – assessment and advice to the responsible party on restoring environments that have been damaged by major spills of oils or chemicals; and,
  • Scientific Support and Research and Development – research to improve knowledge of the fate and effect of spilled hazardous substances, spill countermeasures, and clean-up technology.

Legislation

• Environmental emergency authorities are primarily found within the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA) and the Fisheries Act, which have provisions requiring responsible parties to notify authorities (as per specific regional arrangements) of a release of a substance or the likelihood thereof, and take appropriate corrective measures. If the party responsible fails to take appropriate actions, ECCC has the authority to direct the party to take such measures, or act to mitigate the spill and seek reimbursement from the responsible party.
• ECCC also administers the Environmental Emergency Regulations, 2019, under CEPA. When certain criteria and thresholds are met, the Regulations require industry to prepare emergency plans in anticipation of an uncontrolled, unplanned, or accidental spill of the hazardous substances they store or handle at a fixed facility and also provide written reports relating to environmental emergencies. The new regulations came into force on August 24, 2019 and regulate 249 hazardous substances.

Intergovernmental Collaboration

• ECCC works closely with provincial and territorial emergency response organizations, and with its American response partners across four emergency management pillars: prevention, preparedness, response and recovery.

Indigenous peoples are important partners in the development and delivery of the emergency management pillars given they are often first on the scene for incidents in remote locations, their close dependence on environmental quality for food security, culture and self-governance of their territories (including lands and water), as well as traditional knowledge of local ecosystems. ECCC is supporting initiatives to co-develop environmental emergency plans with First Nations in British Columbia and to improve early notification of affected Indigenous communities across Canada about environmental emergencies close to these communities. NEEC also considers indigenous and traditional knowledge along with other scientific information when providing expert advice during emergency response.

Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999

Issue

The Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA) has not been comprehensively amended since it was enacted twenty years ago. Although the Act remains fundamentally sound, there are some provisions that have limited program delivery, the ability to fully implement some international obligations or the authority to regulate in certain areas.

Background

• CEPA is one of Canada’s core environmental laws and is relied upon to deliver environmental and health protection programs administered by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) and Health Canada (HC), such as:
  • the National Pollutant Release Inventory;
  • the Canada-wide Air Quality Management System;
  • the Chemicals Management Plan;
  • the Disposal at Sea Program; and
  • various initiatives to reduce emissions from vehicles and fuels (e.g. Clean Fuel Standard).
• CEPA also provides the legislative and regulatory basis for the domestic implementation of various international obligations under bilateral and multilateral environmental agreements, such as:
  • the Canada-United States Air Quality Agreement (re: acid rain)
  • the Basel Convention (re: transboundary movements and disposal of hazardous wastes);
  • the London Convention and the London Protocol (re: marine dumping); and
  • the Rotterdam Convention (re: prior informed consent for certain hazardous chemicals).
• Parliament has reviewed CEPA three times since the Act came into force in 1999, with each review resulting in recommendations for reform. In its response to the most recent review by the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development (ENVI) in 2016-2017, the Government agreed that changes are needed to modernize and improve CEPA and committed to introducing a bill to reform the Act as soon as possible in a future parliament.
• There was a very high level of stakeholder interest in the 2016-17 parliamentary review of CEPA, with some ENGOs calling for extensive CEPA reform.
• In early 2019, NDP MP Nathan Cullen introduced a private member’s bill (C-429) seeking to amend CEPA to prohibit the use of consumer product packaging that is not recyclable or compostable. The House of Commons adjourned for the summer before the bill was debated at Second Reading.

On June 10, 2019, the Government committed to a number of actions to reduce plastic pollution, including to ban harmful single-use plastics as early as 2021 under CEPA, where supported by scientific evidence and when warranted.

Compliance with Wastewater Systems Effluent Regulations

Issue

Compliance issues associated with the Wastewater Systems Effluent Regulations (WSER).

Background

• The WSER came into force in 2012, with national effluent quality standards coming into effect in 2015. The effluent quality standards are achievable through a secondary level of treatment.
• Communities that were not able to meet a secondary level of treatment when the regulations came into force were able to apply until June 2014 for a transitional authorization, which allows for additional time to plan, finance, and construct new infrastructure needed to comply with the effluent standards. Depending on risk to the environment, timelines for compliance in transitional authorizations were issued for December 31 of 2020, 2030, or 2040.
• There are approximately *Redacted* municipalities across Canada who did not apply *Redacted*
  
  
• There is no mechanism in the regulations to issue new transitional authorizations at this time, or to modify an existing one.
• *Redacted*
  
  • Metro Vancouver, responsible for the Metro Vancouver Lions Gate Wastewater Treatment Plant, which is discharging undertreated wastewater into Southern Resident Killer Whale (SRKW) and prey habitat, has indicated that they will take the opportunity provided *Redacted* to move to tertiary level of treatment.
    *Redacted*
• Compliance with WSER requirements is a sensitive topic *Redacted* and has garnered significant media attention in the past months.
• Since 2015, ECCC has been implementing a national enforcement approach to address WSER non-compliance in a fair, consistent and predictable manner.

Moving forward, ECCC will continue to coordinate a comprehensive approach that integrates the enforcement strategy with compliance promotion activities, with a goal to address compliance issues in communities across the country including First Nations.

Plastics

Issue

Plastics provide significant benefits to the Canadian economy and quality of life; however, plastic pollution stemming from both plastic usage and end-of-life management is a major global challenge.

Background

• In Canada, 90% of plastics are landfilled, with an estimated lost value of unrecovered plastic of $7.8 billion in 2016. Plastic debris, including microplastics, have been found in large quantities in the Great Lakes and even in remote ecosystems such as the Canadian Arctic.
• Plastic pollution is a growing threat to Canada’s environment and is a burden on our economy. Canadians want the Government of Canada to take action.
• At the 2018 G7 in Charlevoix, Canada launched the Ocean Plastics Charter (PDF), which outlines actions to eradicate plastic pollution and recognizes the need for urgent action to address the impacts of marine litter. As of November 1, 2019, 22 governments and 64 businesses and organizations have endorsed the Oceans Plastics Charter.
• In November 2018, the federal, provincial and territorial environment ministers, through the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME), agreed in principle to a Canada-wide Strategy on Zero Plastic Waste (PDF), and in June 2019, approved Phase 1 of an Action Plan. A Phase 2 Action Plan will be ready in late spring 2020.
• Parliament has looked at the issue and the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development presented its report in the House of Common on June 18, 2019.
• Provinces, territories and municipalities have taken various measures to reduce plastic pollution. These measures take the form of restrictions, levies, or bans on certain single-use plastics, such as plastic bags and straws. Certain provinces, such as British Columbia and Québec, have implemented extended producer responsibility programs that make companies responsible for the costs of managing the plastic they manufacture or import into Canada at the post-consumer stage.
• The Government of Canada has also committed to undertake a suite of actions, including banning harmful single-use plastics as early as 2021 where supported by scientific evidence and warranted, and holding companies responsible for plastic waste.
• To inform the federal government’s policy agenda and regulatory options under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, including possible plastic bans, ECCC and Health Canada are conducting a Science Assessment of Plastic Pollution. This assessment is being followed closely by industry and environmental organizations.
• Global scientific understanding of how much plastic pollution is in the environment, how it gets there, and the impacts on ecosystems and humans is evolving. The government released Canada’s Plastics Science Agenda in June 2019 to identify priority research areas towards which efforts could be directed to address critical knowledge gaps and to help leverage scientific capacity from key actors across all sectors, inside and outside of government.
• The Basel Convention on the transboundary movements of hazardous waste and their disposal was amended in May 2019 to make the global trade of non-recyclable plastic waste more transparent and better controlled, The amendments will enter into force on January 1, 2021 which will bind Canada at that time.

These amendments will enable countries to refuse imports of certain plastic waste when they are not in a position to manage the waste properly. This could result in an increase in demand for recycling and collection services in Canada.