By Lesley Hastie
Toxins reduction program to be repealed in Ontario
Locals in a downtown Toronto residential area are just discovering Uranium pellets are being produced from uranium dioxide powder in their own neighbourhood. Peterborough may be next. Potential train derailments and the closeness of schools are increasing health concerns about the dust and radiation.
So what do we know about toxins being used or released here in Muskoka? And what are companies doing to reduce them? According to a series by the Toronto Star we know that in 2016 four industrial plants in Muskoka created, used or emitted the carcinogens PM2.5, cadmium and formaldehyde. These and other toxins at these plants can cause other serious health effects including aggravation of cardiac and respiratory illnesses.
However, it could be that these companies are taking steps to reduce the health risks to the public, their employees, and the environment. The provincial Toxins Reduction program (TRA) came into effect in 2010 and its Toxin Reduction planners help companies to avoid the use of toxins, and help with recycling or other methods of preventing toxin creation or emissions.
Currently any such toxin reductions must be reported, and the resulting positive PR seems to produce an incentive effect. In 2016, about 40 per cent of regulated facilities in Ontario planned to reduce toxic substances and according to the Ontario government report in 2017, carcinogenic toxic substances decreased by two per cent in all the 1046 regulated facilities in Ontario between 2015 and 2016, and significantly, by five per cent across those facilities that plan to reduce toxic substances. In that same year across Ontario there had been a six per cent decrease in use of toxic substances, a two per cent decrease in their creation and nine per cent decrease in the amount of toxic substances contained in products.
However, the incentive to reduce toxins will be gone at the end of 2021 along with the assistance of Toxin Reduction planners. The Ontario government is repealing the act (part of the omnibus bill 66). Who knew that being “open for business” would be at such costs? Presumably we can expect toxin levels to rise if it means lower costs for business.
Thus reduction of red tape is once more hailed as sovereign over health and environmental concerns.
We see this alarming policy expanded in the report this week by the Auditor General of Ontario and her statements about Ontario’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The Ontario government, in assuring us that it will meet its 2030 targets, counts as benefits programs it has cancelled; cancelled programs such as electricity conservation, renewable energy, cap-and-trade, use of electric vehicles purchases assuming there are rebates (which it has cancelled), consumers switching to renewable natural gas (while making that gas less affordable), double counting and more.
It appears that the Ontario Government’s plans to meet federal reduction targets are a myth, a fantasy, a delusion and a shameful and deliberate miscalculation of Ontario’s future emissions.
This Government is not to be trusted with our health nor our part of this planet.
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Our Governments have been allowing the chemical companies to poison us for years now’ and do nothing about it. What with all our food being grown with chemical fertilizers and all the air fresheners we spray around our homes and cars plus all the scent in cleaners that is all derived with chemicals all deodorants that we rub and spray all over our bodies every day And no one even thinks about this but most of this stuff all contain chemicals that are proven to cause cancer plus reproductive problems and no one knows for sure just what other things chemicals cause. My Point is why worry about a bit of radio active material when we use all this other stuff every day eat it drink it and spray it directly on our body.
Thank you very much for this illuminating article. After (and before, actually) the Auditor General’s Report, the majority of Ontarians was aware that we were being sold “magic beans” with respect to the climate change: and we didn’t even get a broken-down cow in return. The real story here is that supposedly the PM is actually seriously discussing this matter with Mr. Ford. One can only hope that it’s only perception (with a view toward improved national unity).
The far more captivating story (damn omnibus bills!), is the pending repeal of the Toxins Reduction Act, 2010 (passed by the Liberals); a small wonder that it wasn’t lauded in Tory country. Obviously, the percentage reductions in toxins (used, created, or used in products) obtained by moral suasion is meaningful. The raw figures, however, would mean more with reference to the initial amount of toxins; and the amount of toxins allowed by law. For example, is a 5% reduction from 100 mcg to 95 mcg better than a 5% reduction from 20 mcg to 19 mcg? As the former is a 5-mcg reduction, and the latter is a 1-mcg reduction; shouldn’t the former be better? But not if the limit allowable by law is only 10 mcg?
Regardless of the foregoing, it is obvious that the provincial Tories are moving in the wrong direction with both the climate crisis and our health and safety. Ontario’s prosperity will mean little by 2050; when so few of us will be left to divide the spoils.