Anti-Pollution and air/water quality in Canada

Résumé du document

The object of this brief note is an environmental issue. It concerns the anti-pollution policy and the means to improve air and water quality in Canada.
Indeed, this problem touches the entire Canadian population. Here, there is no discrimination concerning class, gender or race: everyone is concerned by the quality of their environment. Undoubtedly, the problem of pollution does affect the society and the individuals. It has a bad impact on their daily life and their quality of living. In the short term, pollution is synonymous with small inconveniences that everybody has already experienced such as respiratory problems. But it can also be more serious: for example asthmatic people can die because of pollution. Air pollution is responsible for 5900 deaths every year in Canada.

Extraits

[...] They aim at offering to the Canadian citizens a better quality of air and of water. Those two policies include many measures such as surveillance. They have already showed a relative efficiency (even if the impact of the Clean Air Act is sometimes criticized and questioned) and the aim of this briefing note will not be to replace Clean Air and Clean Water but to propose a complement to the current policy. Stakeholders The stake of the future policy potentially concerns every citizen. [...]

[...] Background Many policies have already been implemented in the domain of pollution, air and water quality. At the international level, the Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987 in our own country in order to solve the problem of the hole in the ozone layer. More recently and with a wider impact, the Kyoto Protocol (1997) was signed. It aims at taking measures in order to face the global warming, notably to control the greenhouse gas emissions. At that point, Canada agreed to reduce its emissions of 6 percent. [...]

[...] It concerns the anti-pollution policy and the means to improve air and water quality in Canada. Indeed, this problem touches the whole Canadian population. Here, there is no discrimination concerning class, gender or race: everyone is concerned by the quality of their environment. Undoubtedly, the problem of pollution does affect the society and the individuals. It has a bad impact on their daily life and their quality of living. In the short term, pollution is synonymous with small inconveniences that everybody has already experienced such as respiratory problems. [...]

[...] A sort of commission should also be formed to study this. It would have a national character and would gather people to represent the federal state, the provinces, the industry, the citizens and the concerned NGO's and organizations. So Canada would finally give itself the means to respect its international obligations. On a more national point of view it seems necessary to maintain and to increase the efforts in research and development. Obviously, it is the responsibility of the state to provide the necessary financing, for example for the research of new engines. [...]

[...] Concerning the financing of this policy, a very serious study has proved that the economic benefits of an improvement of air and water quality would be more important than the costs. So, this policy could be financed by loan. It would not be a problem to pay off because of the benefits. The direct and indirect impacts of an anti-pollution policy are numerous; it is supposed to lead to a decline of the mortality so it is synonymous with less health expenditures and social benefits for the state. What is more, this policy would favour productivity of several sectors such as forestry, agriculture or fishing. [...]