My mom has endured cancer, twice, as have many in our extended family. One of the many awful things about the experience is the near-impossibility of pinpointing a cause. Yes, some risk factors are well known. But everyone has met a family like mine, where some members develop the illness and others are thankfully spared. I’ll never know why my mom got sick, and that’s painful to accept. 

Maybe this uncertainty is why cancer organizations fundraise by talking about cures instead of prevention. I often worry that approach deflects attention from the carcinogens we’re exposed to, often without information or consent. So when reporters Leah Borts-Kuperman and Urbi Khan pitched a story about the company Sterigenics and the carcinogens it uses, which we ran this week, I said yes almost immediately. 

Sterigenics uses a chemical called ethylene oxide to sterilize medical equipment. It’s highly effective, but its emissions are carcinogenic when inhaled in high amounts, as Health Canada, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other institutions have said for decades. In the U.S., almost 1,000 plaintiffs have joined suits alleging ethylene oxide emissions from Sterigenics facilities led to illnesses including cancer. The company has agreed to pay out almost half a billion U.S. dollars in Illinois and Georgia as a result. It says the settlements are not an admission of liability and that “no generally accepted science demonstrates that low-level [ethylene oxide] exposure from Sterigenics’ facilities cause medical conditions.”

As Urbi and Leah report, in 2021, Environment and Climate Change Canada researchers studying ethylene oxide emissions drove around Toronto measuring the chemical — and found very high levels near a Sterigenics plant in Scarborough that’s now closed. But the response here has been much different than in the States. No level of government seems to have advised residents of the results, either in Scarborough or in Mississauga, where Sterigenics has opened a new factory. Both neighbourhoods have a high number of racialized and low-income residents, and no one seemed to know Sterigenics existed. 

“Leah and I felt like harbingers of bad news when we went door-to-door in Scarborough and Mississauga and talked with people about what they knew, which was basically little to nothing,” Urbi told me. “The thing that really hit home was realizing I personally know people in the community. I mentor kids who live in and around the Golden Mile neighbourhood where Sterigenics was located in Scarborough.”

Leah and Urbi became friends studying journalism at Toronto Metropolitan University. After Leah moved back to North Bay, Ont., they kept in touch. Both are freelancers, and Urbi also teaches community journalism and personal storytelling to newcomer youth at a Scarborough non-profit. She told Leah that after work, she often felt like she had grime covering her hair and skin. 

The two began digging into air quality in Scarborough, where factories often bump up against residential areas. They found Environment Canada’s ethylene oxide study and began reading about the chemical and the lawsuits tied to Sterigenics plants in the U.S. Then, they sent me a pitch. 

What I found frustrating while editing the story is something I’ve written about before: the lack of access Canadians have to data about our own health. In the U.S., ethylene oxide outrage took off when the Illinois Department of Public Health found Hodgkin’s lymphoma cases in women living near a Sterigenics facility was 90 per cent higher than expected. But in Ontario — as Leah and Urbi report in the story — that kind of data is not publicly available. Like I said: when it comes to cancer, you often have to accept you’ll never know — especially in Canada. 

As with Leah’s previous Narwhal stories set in North Bay, this piece shows the value of local journalists who are personally invested in the places they’re writing about. That includes photographer Sid Naidu and, well, me; we’re both from Scarborough and care deeply about the neighbourhoods near both the current plant and former facility. 

The story also shows the value of collaboration, not just between two reporters, but two newsrooms. Once again, The Narwhal has partnered with The Local, which allowed us to tap into their deep knowledge of public health — and pay Leah and Urbi a bit more for months of reporting. Like us, The Local is a non-profit.

We’re both determined to bring to light critical stories about what’s happening in your backyard — and we can only do this thanks to the support of community members like you who give whatever small amount they can afford.

The result of all this collaboration and hard work is a thorough investigation that’s also touching and from the heart. I’m glad The Narwhal and The Local are telling it. 

Take care and f**k cancer, 

Denise Balkissoon
Ontario bureau chief

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