(Chapter 1-Substances Assessed under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act,1999)
(Chapter 2-Pesticide Safety and Accessibility)
(Chapter 3-Federal Contaminated Sites)
Ottawa, 6 March 2008-The federal government has finished assessing all but 3 of 69 chemical substances identified more than a decade ago as priorities to be assessed for toxicity under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA). It has also improved the management of pesticides and has devoted much-needed attention to federal contaminated sites. As a result, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Ron Thompson, concludes in his Status Report tabled today in the House of Commons that the government has made satisfactory progress in addressing issues from previous audit reports on the management of chemicals.
"Given the serious weaknesses that we identified in previous years, the findings in these chapters are indeed good news," said Mr. Thompson.
Chapter 1 of the Report notes that Environment Canada and Health Canada have finally reached conclusions on the toxicity of most of the priority substances identified more than ten years ago. The government has put some control measures in place for those found to be toxic substances under CEPA.
Chapter 2 observes that the Pest Management Regulatory Agency has consistently applied its procedures for evaluating the risks of pesticides. The Agency has also taken action to give Canadian growers access to new, more effective, and possibly safer pesticides.
Chapter 3 reports that the four departments responsible for 89 percent of the federal government's known and suspected contaminated sites are assessing and remediating them, with support and direction from the Treasury Board Secretariat and Environment Canada. A government goal by 2020 is to eliminate the $3.1 billion liability recorded so far in connection with its contaminated sites.
"Our three chapters on chemicals management demonstrate clearly that significant environmental issues can, in fact, be addressed successfully," said Mr. Thompson.
The Status Report follows up on the government's progress in addressing issues identified in previous reports. In most cases, the government agreed with the recommendations in the original audit and made a commitment to take action on them. In each chapter of this report, the government's progress is deemed either satisfactory or unsatisfactory, taking into account the complexity of the issue and the amount of time that has passed since the original audit.
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The 2008 Status Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development is available on the Office of the Auditor General of Canada website.
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