Kirsty Duncan is a Liberal member of parliament (Etobicoke North) and critic for the Environment. She has a Ph.D. in geography (University of Edinburgh, 1992) and has taught meteorology, climatology, and climate change at the University of Windsor, corporate social responsibility and medical geography at the University of Toronto and global environmental processes at Royal Roads University. She served on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an organization that won the 2007 Nobel Prize with Al Gore and is the author of Hunting the 1918 Flu: One Scientist’s Search for a Killer Virus (University of Toronto Press, 2003), and Environment and Health: Protecting our Common Future (2008).

Successive Harper governments have pitted the economy against the environment. Laws have been weakened and repealed to fast-track development, putting the environment and the health and safety of Canadians at risk.

When did the debate change from protecting the environment in order to safeguard human health and well-being to gutting environmental protection in order to streamline expansion and growth? Is it not time we made human health — and particularly the welfare of the most vulnerable, our children — a consideration in the environmental debate?

Canada’s children are our future, and our greatest asset. Their ability to thrive depends on meeting their basic needs, and a healthy and safe environment.

Unfortunately, our children are more vulnerable than adults to environmental risks for a number of reasons. They breathe more air, drink more water and eat more food than adults do in proportion to their weight. They have developing central nervous, digestive, immune and reproductive systems. They have different patterns of behaviour which may increase their exposure. They have little control over their environment, may be unaware of environmental risks and unable to make choices to protect their health.

In Canada, children’s environmental health problems include asthma, developmental disorders, and exposures to toxic substances. Important chemicals or factors in the environment to which children are exposed that may cause adverse health effects include: bisphenol A, dioxins, electric and magnetic fields, lead, mercury, mould, and pesticides. New or recently recognized risk factors include: climate change, endocrine-disrupting chemicals, manufactured nano-particles, and ozone depletion.

While it is impossible to address all children’s health issues related to the environment, I shall highlight two key areas: air pollution and contaminated sites. In 2008 the Canadian Medical Association found that 21,000 Canadians died prematurely because of air pollution. Most of the deaths resulted from years of exposure, but 3,000 were the result of short-term acute exposure. Air pollution also led to 620,000 doctor’s office visits, 30,000 emergency department visits, and 9,000 hospital visits.

Sadly, children are particularly at risk to air pollution due to their immature respiratory systems. As a result, they are prone to suffer from reduced lung function, increases in respiratory symptoms, and increased frequency and severity of asthma attacks.

It is therefore extremely disappointing that when the Harper government announced its finalized regulations to limit “climate-warming pollution from coal-fired power plants”, the final regulations did not go nearly far enough to meet Canada’s climate-change and clean-energy commitments to safeguard our children. In fact the final rules were significantly weaker than the approach first announced by Jim Prentice when he was running Environment.

In addition to being concerned about the government’s weakened coal regulations, Canadians also should be disturbed by Environment Commissioner Scott Vaughan’s words in his spring 2012 report regarding Canada’s 21,000 contaminated sites: “In our view, given the number of sites that remain to be assessed, the government cannot know the full extent of potential risks to human health and the environment that federal contaminated sites pose.”

Clearly, many Canadian children live in communities that are disproportionately affected by exposure to environmental toxins. Moreover, metals and persistent organic pollutants in aboriginal communities are higher than in the rest of Canada.

Despite these facts, every Canadian child should have the right to grow up in a healthy environment, where he or she can live, learn, and play. A safe environment, both inside and outside the home, is fundamental to protecting children’s health, reducing disease and saving lives. It should be one of our top priorities, and one of the most important investments we can make.

The government must ensure environmental justice. Communities burdened by pollution — particularly aboriginal and low-income communities — must have the opportunity to enjoy the health and economic benefits of a clean environment.

Canada is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, supports the Global Plan of Action for Children’s Health and the Environment, and its own Health Canada website says protecting the health and welfare of our children is a national and international priority. Yet the minister of health largely refused to answer my written order paper question regarding children’s health and the environment.

Why does she refuse to outline government action to prevent pre-conception, prenatal and childhood exposures, physical environmental exposures and chemical exposures? What pregnancy health risks may be associated with exposure to heavy metals, bisphenol A and pesticides?

The Harper government should recognize that our children are being exposed to unsafe environments, and should meaningfully address this challenge. Our children are Canada’s most precious resource. The government should put health, and particularly children’s health, back in the environmental debate. Our future depends on it.

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