Summary

• Residents say odours from an oil and gas waste disposal facility in Rolla, B.C., have disrupted their lives for more than a decade
• Energy Minister Adrian Dix, whose ministry oversees the BC Energy Regulator, says inspections and air quality monitoring give a “high degree of confidence” there are no adverse health effects
• Environment Minister Tamara Davidson, whose ministry found multiple compliance issues after inspecting the facility in December 2024, declined to be interviewed or provide comment

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Residents of Rolla, B.C., want to know what is causing the strong chemical odours that have been giving them headaches, literally and figuratively, for more than 10 years. Brenda Delamont, Dave Armstrong and some of their neighbours have been contacting the BC Energy Regulator and the B.C. government about a nearby waste disposal facility, which serves the oil and gas industry, since around 2013. 

But repeated requests from the residents and The Narwhal to both the regulator and relevant provincial ministries have yet to yield answers. On March 16, Energy and Climate Solutions Minister Adrian Dix told The Narwhal air quality monitoring done by the company provides “a high degree of confidence that no adverse health effects are expected for workers or nearby residents.”

That does little to assuage residents’ concerns.

“We still don’t know what it’s from,” Delamont said of the smells that waft onto their properties, which are about a kilometre away from the waste disposal facility operated by Calgary-based Secure Waste Infrastructure Corp. “We’ve never gotten an answer as to why you smell the smells, what the smells are from and how toxic or noxious they are over the long term or short term.”

Across B.C., there are 63 waste disposal facilities like the one in Rolla, nearly 15 per cent of which are operated by Secure. Dozens more facilities across the province store related hazardous waste from oil and gas operations.

The Rolla facility is licensed by B.C.’s Ministry of Environment and Parks and the BC Energy Regulator to handle a variety of hazardous waste products, including hydrogen sulfide, a flammable and highly toxic gas. Some of the waste is treated on site, then injected into underground wells. Other materials are sent to different facilities for disposal.

Before construction began, Armstrong recalls meeting with Secure representatives who told him smells wouldn’t be a problem. They said the facility would include a “state-of-the-art vapour collection and recovery system to ensure no fugitive emissions and prevent odours.” But in the years since then, Armstrong estimates he has called the BC Energy Regulator hundreds of times to report noxious chemical smells that permeate his home, sometimes causing headaches.

Delamont has also made many calls to the regulator about odours at her home, which lies just down the road from Armstrong’s. Both residents say little has been done to address their concerns.“I get the impression of feeble attempts,” Armstrong said of the regulator’s limited response to their concerns.

No fines issued to Secure after B.C. ministry inspection found multiple issues

The Narwhal sent detailed questions about Delamont and Armstrong’s concerns to Secure via the company’s online contact form and by email. In an emailed response, Secure said it “takes community concerns seriously and works closely” with provincial regulators. The company’s response did not answer any of the specific questions sent by The Narwhal.

“When concerns are raised, we investigate them and continue working with regulators and nearby residents to address them,” the company said.

The BC Energy Regulator inspected Secure’s facility 33 times in 2025, according to the company, and found no compliance issues. Meanwhile, a Ministry of Environment inspection conducted in December 2024 found several issues with Secure’s operations, including that the facility accepted thousands more litres of toxic waste than its permit allowed. A warning letter issued after the inspection also noted Secure had removed some of the equipment used to treat waste and installed new equipment not covered by its permit.

No fines were issued to Secure as a result of the inspection. When The Narwhal asked the Environment Ministry whether Secure had addressed the compliance and permit issues identified 15 months prior, the ministry’s emailed response did not directly answer the question.

“Secure was instructed to verify their permit aligns with Hazardous Waste Regulation emission specifications,” the Environment Ministry said in a statement to The Narwhal. Because of last year’s findings, the facility “will be prioritized for reinspection in the next fiscal year,” the ministry said in its email.

Delamont is frustrated but not surprised by the lack of resolution a year after the warning letter was issued.

“It’s hard because nothing ever really seems to come of things,” she said. “If you’re dealing with a site with infractions already, you would think that within a year you could check up on the things that you found them non-compliant on.”Delamont works as a chef in a seniors care facility. In her line of work, she says, facilities that don’t comply with regulations can quickly be shut down.

‘A very significant effort has been made’: Adrian Dix

Ahead of the publication of a previous story on the Rolla facility on March 11, The Narwhal requested comment from Dix and Environment Minister Tamara Davidson, whose ministries are responsible for permitting the facility. 

After delays and much back and forth, staff from Davidson’s ministry did not agree to an interview.

Dix’s office offered a phone interview on March 16. During that conversation, Dix said the BC Energy Regulator has conducted three inspections of Secure’s Rolla facility so far this year, on top of 36 in 2025 and 49 in 2024.

“The BC Energy Regulator has not only been, but will continue to be, responsive to the concerns,” he said, describing the regulator’s response to date as “comprehensive.”“That doesn’t mean that every time a person makes a complaint, they get satisfaction from their perspective, but certainly, a very significant effort has been made.”

Dix did not directly answer when asked whether the BC Energy Regulator can inform residents about the causes of the odours they have been reporting for years. He did mention air quality testing done by Secure at the facility that found all “chemicals of interest” — including volatile organic compounds, benzene and hydrogen sulfide — were only present at low levels and within regulatory guidelines.“These findings provide a high degree of confidence that no adverse health effects are expected for workers or nearby residents under the conditions observed during the monitoring period,” Dix said.Secure emailed copies of an undated air quality monitoring report to Armstrong and Delamont on March 16. The findings in the report reflect Dix’s comments: none of the chemicals tested for were found at levels beyond regulatory and health guidelines.

The air quality monitoring was done over the course of a week, according to the report, but the lack of detail left Armstrong wondering about the level of activity taking place at the facility during the monitoring period.

“There’s so many variables that that whole report is just hokey to me,” Armstrong said. “It’s not all the time, but when we get the odours in their yard, they are strong.”

Armstrong expressed disappointment at the lack of answers about what is causing the troubling smells.

“I’m just hoping we can win something out of this,” he said. “It’s been 15 years of no results.”

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The Arctic has been in the news a lot lately. Between the increased geopolitical interest in Greenland, claims over sovereignty, resource exploitation and the devastating impacts of climate change, the region has become a sentinel for global change.

But away from these headlines, a quieter crisis is unfolding that threatens Canada’s role in global environmental science, law and policy: the dismantling of research teams at the department responsible for Canada’s environmental policies and programs. The federal government’s plan to reduce the public service by 15 per cent over three years means that more than 800 positions at Environment and Climate Change Canada will be cut.

As an environmental scientist who has been involved in the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program since 2016 and an interdisciplinary legal scholar focused on water governance in Canada, we have seen how science can shape policy. For decades, Environment and Climate Change Canada research scientists have been integral to the work of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, a working group that provides advice and assessments to the Arctic Council.

This intergovernmental group comprised of Indigenous Peoples, Arctic states and non-Arctic states with observer status is the major platform for protecting the environment and coordinating sustainable development initiatives in the Arctic.

Scientists at Environment and Climate Change Canada have played a leading role in more than 20 international reports on persistent organic pollutants and mercury. In fact, department researchers have acted as the largest group of chapter leads in these global assessments since the 1990s.

Budget cuts at the department raise concerns about how governments will develop effective policies and laws that rely upon scientific research.

The risks from budget cuts

Many of the scientists who lead projects on the long-term trends of toxins in Arctic wildlife face cuts or might lose their jobs entirely. Department scientists are often the ones to identify and assess “chemicals of emerging Arctic concern” — newly discovered chemical threats to human and environmental health that scientists are only just beginning to understand.

Losing the scientists who lead and interpret contaminant data in Arctic wildlife will take much more from Canada than scientific expertise; we risk losing our ability to understand and effectively react to chemical threats and their potential environmental and health impacts.

Data collection for unique monitoring datasets spanning up to 50 years is at risk of being discontinued. Even more concerning is the potential loss of national tissue archives if monitoring and research projects are cut. Contaminant data in Canadian wildlife have been instrumental to the listing of toxins under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, an international treaty to control the global production and use of particularly hazardous chemicals.

Similarly, monitoring for mercury in Arctic air and biota is an important part of the rationale for the Minamata Convention, a global treaty designed to protect human and environmental health from mercury contamination.

In many ways, these global agreements exist because Canadian data, produced by Environment and Climate Change Canada scientists, proved that chemicals used thousands of kilometres away end up in the bodies of Arctic wildlife and Indigenous Peoples who rely on healthy wildlife for food security and cultural identity and practices.

These international treaties set out the norms, legal principles and regulatory schemes that have been incorporated into Canadian law. They support the risk assessment and management of many toxic chemicals under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

Losing these samples and monitoring programs would set back Canadian and global contaminant research and reinforce criticisms that Canada is a laggard in environmental law and policy.

Risk for Indigenous communities

Budget cuts could also intimately impact the daily lives of those living in the Arctic and raise questions of environmental justice. Indigenous communities in the Arctic face higher exposure to many toxins than other Canadians due to their reliance on foods like fish, belugas and seals.

Despite global efforts, blood mercury levels in many Inuit communities remain higher than the general Canadian population. Furthermore, concentrations of per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, also known as “forever chemicals,” are consistently higher in these communities than in the south.

Without ongoing research, we risk creating a vacuum in environmental governance and law. Current legislation, like the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, aims to protect vulnerable populations and uphold the right to a healthy environment and environmental justice. But we cannot uphold these rights if we stop measuring how contaminants are impacting the health of the environment, food and water of the populations most affected by these chemicals.

Across Canada, the cuts undermine effective chemical management. Canada’s chemical management plan depends heavily on the expert assessment of government scientists. This expert-based risk assessment has enabled the discovery and monitoring of new chemical risks with comparatively few bureaucratic hurdles. However, it also means that the proposed cuts are particularly devastating to this program.

If we remove the scientists the regulatory system depends on, the system breaks. This means that these proposed cuts could not only cost jobs and reduce scientific excellence in Canada, but also leave the health of Canadians and our environment less protected.

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In 2019, B.C. unanimously passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. It was celebrated as a major step toward working with First Nations in a better, more equal way.

But a court ruling earlier this month seems to be contributing to a change of heart for Premier David Eby. On Dec. 5, the British Columbia Court of Appeal ruled the government’s obligations under the Declaration Act are legally enforceable. Eby is now arguing judges shouldn’t be setting the province’s reconciliation agenda. And he says he is willing to change the law to make sure they can’t.

“The work we do in reconciliation is to empower people, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, not to empower the courts,” Eby told attendees at a BC Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Dec. 10. 

“Last week’s court of appeal decision invites further and endless litigation,” he added. “It is the exact opposite of the direction we need to go: less certainty, not more; more conflict, not less.”

When the legislature resumes in the spring, Eby said the government will introduce amendments to the act to make things clear.

Merle Alexander, a lawyer who helped draft the Declaration Act, called the premier’s pledge to swiftly amend the first B.C. law co-developed with First Nations — one that passed into law with the full support of the legislature — troubling.

“[The Declaration Act] was a tacit agreement between the B.C. government and B.C. First Nations that the status quo wasn’t working and an agreement that we were going to change things together,” Alexander, a lawyer with Miller Titerle + Company, who specializes in Indigenous law, said.

“The idea that you could go back and unilaterally change some of its core purposes by yourself, with or without First Nations, to me, on the face of it, is extremely offensive.”

Cynthia Callison, a partner with Callison & Hanna Law who has advocated for First Nations in B.C. for 29 years, called Eby’s vow to alter the Declaration Act a knee-jerk reaction.

“Every time a court has acknowledged Indigenous Peoples’ rights or tried to encourage reconciliation between the Crown and First Nations, there’s always a backlash,” Callison, who is a member of the Tahltan Nation, said in an interview. “It’s something to be expected.”

What is UNDRIP and why does it matter?

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) affirms the inherent human rights of Indigenous Peoples worldwide. It acknowledges those who have suffered and continue to suffer persecution, genocide, cultural erasure, marginalization and disproportionate impacts from resource extraction and climate change. In 46 articles, the declaration covers a range of basic rights that represent the “minimum standards for the survival, dignity and well-being” of Indigenous Peoples.

In other words, UNDRIP and B.C.’s equivalent legislation, are an acknowledgement of the basic rights of Indigenous Peoples, including the right to “free, prior and informed consent” about decisions that affect their lives and well-being.

When B.C.’s Declaration Act was introduced, the government stressed this did not amount to a veto for First Nations on issues like resource development. Instead, the government described the act as “a path forward” for relations between First Nations and the province. The idea was the legislation would hold the government accountable, in law, to its stated commitments on reconciliation.

In 2021, it was Eby, in his former role as attorney general, who put forward a change to the province’s Interpretation Act, which gives courts guidance on how to apply provincial laws and statutes. At the time, Eby said the changes would make it “explicit that the province’s preferred approach” is to have laws and regulations interpreted in ways that align with the United Nations declaration.

That same year, the Canadian government passed its own law to use the declaration “as an international human rights instrument that can help interpret and apply Canadian law.”

Callison believes it will be difficult for the B.C. government to insulate its laws from being held to a widely recognized international standard, especially one that the federal government upholds.

“Whether or not it’s legislated, it’s still something that courts are able to use in decisions. Maybe they’re not bound to it, but they still can recognize those principles,” Callison said. “The reason why Indigenous people wanted it to be legislated, I think, was because then it was clear that the court could use that standard.”

We’re suing the RCMP to fight for press freedom

In November 2021, photojournalist Amber Bracken was arrested by the RCMP while on assignment for The Narwhal. So we launched a lawsuit to take a stand for press freedom. Now, we’re in the middle of our trial.

The recent appeal court ruling concluded the Declaration Act has “immediate legal effect” on B.C.’s laws — not just the ones the province has decided to bring into alignment with the principles of UNDRIP.

“What the court did in the decision, unfortunately, is to say that at any time, any nation can come to court and apply to find a law invalid [under the United Nations declaration],” Eby said on Dec. 10. “And that was never the intention.”

But how a government hopes its legislation will be applied by the courts — as conveyed by ministers speaking in the legislature, for example — can only be secondary to the letter of the law, Alexander explained.

“The most important part of the interpretation is the literal words of the statute itself,” he said. 

Those laws lay out a process for legal reforms to be co-developed with First Nations, Alexander added, but don’t contain any language barring the courts from interpreting them.

What’s happened to date in the Gitxaała case?

The appeal court’s Dec. 5 decision was the result of a challenge to part of a 2023 B.C. Supreme Court ruling launched by the Gitxaała and the Ehattesaht First Nations. That ruling agreed with the nations’ claim that B.C.’s mineral claim staking regime did not fulfill the government’s obligations to consult with First Nations. It also concluded that B.C.’s Declaration Act was not legally enforceable, which is what the nations just successfully appealed.

Gitxaała hailed the appeal court’s ruling as “precedent setting.”

“Aligning all B.C. laws with the [United Nations] declaration and upholding the standard of free, prior and informed consent is the only pathway to the investor ‘certainty’ the mining sector seeks,” Gitxaała Chief Councillor Linda Innes said in a statement.

The case was brought forward by Gitxaała in 2021. Like many court cases that centre on infringement of Indigenous Rights, its scope was wide reaching — but its origins stemmed from environmental damages that occurred on Lax k’naga dzol (Banks Island) in 2015 and subsequent mineral claims staked there between 2018 and 2020. Banks Island, which Gitxaała refer to as their “bread basket,” is on B.C.’s northwest coast, south of the Skeena River estuary. 

B.C.’s Mineral Tenure Act is “colonial legislation” that dates back to the mid-1800s gold rush, the ruling stated. While the law, often called the free-entry system, has been updated and amended over the years, it still allowed for anyone to stake a claim on lands in B.C. without first asking permission from the landowner or First Nations. 

Callison described the appeal court’s ruling as a logical next step to address a legal infringement on Indigenous Rights that the province has been aware of for a long time.

“In this case, it’s quite obvious that this mineral tenure system, the free miner system, is inconsistent with Indigenous Peoples’ rights,” Callison said.

And fulfilling the requirements of the Gitxaała decision will create more certainty for First Nations and B.C.’s mining industry, Callison argued.

“They can’t complain that they don’t know what is culturally important to First Nations if it’s identified and if it’s been declared as a non-staking area.”

Naxginkw Tara Marsden, who works with the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs, called the recent decision “pivotal.”

“A lot of our problems in resource management centre around these fundamental legislation like [the Mineral Tenure Act], where industry effectively gets unfettered access to the rights to resources,” she told The Narwhal. “But undoing the free-entry system, bolstered by the legal effect of UNDRIP, moves us away from that. It’s a paradigm shift, and can spill over into others.”

How is the political world reacting to the Gitxaała decision?

The appeal court decision on the Gitxaała case isn’t the only one troubling the premier. During his address at the luncheon, Eby called the appeal court ruling and the B.C. Supreme Court’s decision in the Cowichan Tribes case “deeply troubling.”

Eby, the one-time head of the BC Civil Liberties Association, slammed provincial judges for issuing “dramatic, overreaching and unhelpful” decisions he claimed could destabilize the provincial economy.

“It’s hard to understate the damage that could be done or has already been done to public support for the delicate, critical and necessary work we have to do with First Nations in a province that was almost entirely settled without treaties, and in a country that has Section 35 of the Constitution,” Eby warned. 

“While this work is essential to our success, it could also be the undoing of our province as a place to do business.” Amending the Declaration Act and the Interpretation Act will make the government’s intentions clear, Eby told the audience, and prevent future court decisions from potentially destabilizing economic development.

Alexander believes the premier’s plan could have the opposite effect, potentially triggering more court cases from First Nations and thereby creating more uncertainty for resource extraction and other industries in the long run, while also damaging the province’s relationship with First Nations.

“People have very fragile trust in the government of the day, but when they so intentionally change legislation to ensure that there’s no objective party reviewing how they perform reconciliation, it seems very insidious.”

This year, B.C. passed legislation to fast-track the North Coast transmission line, renewable energy projects and yet-to-be-defined “provincially significant projects.” The B.C. government admitted it had not fulfilled its consultation obligations before introducing the legislation, which many First Nations forcefully criticized.

Eby’s vow to amend the Declaration Act could even stiffer opposition from First Nations leaders, Alexander warned.

“It’s hard to know how damaging it will be to reconciliation, because, in truth, Premier Eby himself has damaged reconciliation in the province so tremendously in the last year, it’s hard to measure,” he said. “There’s a lot of burning bridges already.”

Updated Dec. 16, 2025, at 11:08 a.m. PT: This story was updated to correct the spelling of Cynthia Callison’s law firm, Callison & Hanna.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Splashed across the website of nearly every conservation authority in Ontario is a warning about low water levels. 

For nearly 80 years, the provincial agencies have been tasked with protecting public health and safety related to the province’s watersheds. That means safeguarding local drinking water sources and working to reduce the risks from natural hazards like flooding, erosion and drought. As Ontario’s population has grown, they have also been responsible for regulating development to minimize those risks, issuing permits only to those who pay attention to sustainable construction and growth.

Over the last six years, the Doug Ford government has passed four bills that have drastically changed the rules governing the 36 conservation authorities’ ability to do this job — all to speed up development. Those changes have included reducing conservation authorities’ influence over development, weakening their ability to protect water quality and wetlands and having their decisions be overruled by the overseeing minister.

Each change has come with an argument of efficiency, and since then, nearly all conservation authorities have publicly reported permits are being reviewed faster. Still, some 19 months after the last set of changes was imposed, the government has delivered yet another watershed change: it is proposing to consolidate 36 agencies into seven.

On Oct. 31, Environment Minister Todd McCarthy said individual conservation authorities were “operating largely on their own, with fragmented and outdated data systems and a patchwork of standards and service delivery.” This, he said, had led to “unpredictable and inconsistent turnaround times” for development permit approvals. 

“This is holding back Ontario,” he said.

“Obviously, there’s a fair bit of whiplash or scar tissue, pick your metaphor,” one conservation authority official from northern Ontario said. The Narwhal spoke with 12 people at 12 authorities for this story, many of whom asked to keep their names confidential for fear of retribution from the government. 

According to most of the sources, the threat to consolidate conservation authorities has been “the worst-kept secret” for a long time. It’s been talked about since this government took office, especially as Ford has previously moved to consolidate health care, and is rumoured to be planning the same for school boards. The consistent emphasis on efficiency and rapid development has kept conservation authorities in the crosshairs, as they strived to meet the government pressures without losing focus on their mandate to preserve Ontario’s watersheds and protect the public.

Currently, 26 out of 36 conservation authorities have staff closely monitoring worryingly low water levels in rivers and lakes across the province, with some declaring near-drought conditions brought on by a lack of rain. They’re doing this while they also grapple with the impacts of consolidation.

Consolidation of conservation authorities would be ‘a drastic shift’ that may ‘slow approvals, create confusion’

Despite assurances from McCarthy that they will all still be able to do this core job, there is deep skepticism among conservation authorities based on a historically fraught relationship and a litany of recent Progressive Conservative policies that have endangered Ontario’s water, forests and land. In 2023, two watchdog reports on the Greenbelt scandal found the Ford government had prioritized developer requests over environmental and technical considerations.

“The government is right to want a conservation authority system that is more consistent, transparent and efficient, especially when it comes to supporting housing and economic growth,” Jonathan Scott, a councillor for the town of Bradford West Gwillimbury and chair of the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority board, told The Narwhal. “There may be room for targeted, sensible consolidation in Ontario’s conservation system, but moving from 36 authorities to just seven would be a drastic shift.” 

Scott said the local environmental expertise in each individual authority is essential. “A merger of that scale could create a larger, more distant bureaucracy that is less responsive to local municipalities, developers and farmers — exactly the people who need timely service and value having a local municipal official or trusted member of staff they can call directly,” he said.

“Losing that connection could slow approvals, create confusion and ultimately have the opposite effect of what the government intends.”

The government’s proposal to consolidate conservation authorities has been posted on the Environmental Registry of Ontario for public feedback until Dec. 22. It includes three parts: create a central agency to manage conservation authorities, consult on the boundaries and governance structures of the newly proposed seven regional agencies and then create said agencies by spring 2026. Each proposal has sparked several concerns for conservation authority staff who are in the process of consulting with their municipalities and partners. 

As has been the case since June 2024, no one from the Ontario Ministry of Environment responded to questions from The Narwhal.

Consolidating conservation authorities means overseeing much larger and more complicated watersheds

Ford has been consistently touting the need for “made-in-Ontario” solutions to the province’s issues: conservation authorities are an example of just that. They were created by a Progressive Conservative government in 1946 in response to deforestation. They were strengthened to prevent repeats of the extreme flooding caused by Hurricane Hazel in 1954. While they were tasked with acquiring land for conservation and recreation, their main job has always been monitoring waterways for potential deadly floods, including by regulating development near waterways and wetlands, in flood plains and on Great Lakes shorelines. 

Today, all but five of the 36 conservation authorities are in heavily developed southern Ontario. 

Each authority was created to manage its own watershed, an area of land that drains all the streams and rainfall into a lake, bay or river. The government’s proposal to create seven conservation authorities is based only on the Great Lakes watersheds: Lake Erie, Lake Huron-Superior, Lake Ontario, divided into western, central and eastern and the St. Lawrence River. 

“It’s not a reduction; it’s a consolidation and an amalgamation, which means that all of the communities currently served by conservation authorities will continue to be served by conservation authorities,” Minister McCarthy said on Oct. 31. He repeatedly promised there will be no layoffs in this new structure, but managers will be redeployed as frontline staff.

Conservation authorities have consolidated before. The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority was once four authorities, merged in 1957 to better manage a larger floodplain. Conservation Sudbury and Conservation Halton are both the result of similar mergers. 

Almost all of these consolidations were local decisions made by municipal governments based on specific watershed or development concerns. Earlier this year, municipalities dismissed the idea of merging the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority with Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority, saying it would create more costs and less localized service. 

“Geography has always dictated policy,” an eastern Ontario official said. “I’m not sure that’s what’s happening now.”

Every authority oversees a different kind of environment, even if they seem nearby on a map. Water moves differently through varying landscapes and development rates, and the potential effects of flooding on the environment also vary based on geography.

Take the proposed Huron-Superior conservation authority. It would bring together seven authorities spanning roughly 1,400 kilometres and 78 municipalities from Thunder Bay, on Lake Superior through Bruce, Grey and Dufferin Counties, Simcoe County, York Region, Kawartha Lakes and Durham Region. The natural systems that feed Lake Huron, Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay differ significantly from those along the north shore of Lake Superior. Each has distinct geology, land use and flood-risk patterns.

“It’s no joke to say that large of a region is roughly the size of Switzerland, with very different conditions and needs,” Scott said. “The costs of integrating governance, technology and operations across such a vast area could easily outweigh any savings, while adding complexity and distance.”

Carl Jorgensen, general manager of Conservation Sudbury, said that in northern Ontario, conservation authorities are far from each other. That makes sharing resources extremely challenging.

“The work we do is very localized,” he said. “The government has provided so little so far on how this is actually going to be implemented; it’s really hard to figure out how these new regional conservation authorities will work.”

“But assuming local offices remain, with staff who can support and perform that frontline work efficiently, there’s no advantage to reducing 36 to seven.”

McCarthy insists that not much will change. “Conservation authorities will continue to deliver the programs and the services that they deliver today,” he said on Oct. 31. 

“Their mandate is not changing. The areas served by conservation authorities are not changing. Their funding is not changing. In fact, they will be better equipped than ever before to meet the changing needs of our communities.”

Conservation authority consolidation threatens their ‘localized approach, localized expertise’

Conservation authorities are governed by provincial law but they are created, funded and managed by municipal governments. Local elected municipal officials sit on the boards to oversee their work and budgets, the majority of which is paid by municipal taxes. Sometimes, municipalities send money to more than one authority because watershed boundaries differ from city or town limits.

“We’re not created equal,” one official from central Ontario told The Narwhal. Larger authorities have more money and more staff. “The system can be kind of dysfunctional and needs a shakeup, but the right kind of shakeup that gives all of us the resources we need to do the important work we do.”

Angela Coleman, executive director of Conservation Ontario, told The Narwhal she’s concerned that consolidation could alter longstanding relationships, something she hopes the advocacy organization can share during the consultation process. 

“One of the main drivers that we’re hearing is that municipalities provide funding through their levies, and because of that, representation and decision-making on conservation authority boards must be carefully structured to reflect those financial contributions,” she said.

There is little in the government’s proposal about what the governing boards of amalgamated conservation authorities would look like. But those doing math in their heads are worried about the creation of extremely large boards made up of twice the number of municipal officials currently appointed. Karen Nesbitt, policy director for the Association of Municipalities Ontario, told The Narwhal this would effectively “weaken local municipal leaders’ voice, leading to a major loss of local control over conservation and environmental protection in communities.” 

In an email to The Narwhal, Nesbitt said there is general support for streamlining and improving services. “However, we are seriously concerned about how this is being carried out,” she said. “The government is making major changes, but it is not providing any new, ongoing provincial funding to run conservation authorities effectively. Worse, this funding gap is being made harder to manage because the province is taking these steps simultaneously.”

Staff also worry about a reduced level of on-the-ground services. “We are the last vestiges of the Ontario Ministry of Environment,” an official from western Ontario said. “We’re the only ones still on the ground, accountable to our communities and serving them with science-based work. After consolidation, I don’t know how we can keep doing that.”

A new provincial agency will centralize decision-making and oversight over conservation authorities

The consolidation will come via the Ontario Provincial Conservation Agency, a new government organization that will “provide centralized leadership, efficient governance, strategic direction and oversight of Ontario’s conservation authorities.”

That includes helping to “streamline and standardize service delivery” and ensure the “consistent application of provincial standards” for flood risk assessment and management. The agency will also help update floodplain mapping and dam infrastructure and develop a “single, digital permitting platform.” 

But while the goals of the agency make sense on paper, conservation authority staff are questioning why consolidation is needed in addition to that. Many already collaborate extensively through shared programs, technical partnerships and joint projects, especially in remote and rural Ontario, where resources are limited. 

“If it were only about efficiency, mandate what hardware and software we should use, give us the money for it, impose certain standards on this and be done with it,” an eastern Ontario authority official said. “But this goes so much further than that. It’s not about efficiency; it’s about removing power from the communities and imposing control from above.” 

“There is no equivalent model in Ontario where people are being told they have to pay for a provincial agency to oversee them,” the official continued. “It’s bizarre … good technology can’t make up for bad governance.” 

Scott agreed. “If governance becomes more centralized under a provincial agency while local boards lose control, we could end up with a system where municipal dollars are being spent under provincial direction without municipal oversight,” he said. “That would be a fundamental change to how Ontario’s watershed management system has operated for nearly eighty years — and not, in my view, a change for the better.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

They come from driving a car or taking the bus to the office. Or when employees are given a company-owned smartphone. They can even result from a three-course dinner at a holiday gala — or that box of doughnuts at a meeting. And for companies that extract fossil fuels, they also come when customers use their products.

All are examples of the creation of Scope 3 emissions: greenhouse gases that are indirectly produced by a corporation or institution’s supply chain and everyday operations. 

Employees’ commutes use fuel in the form of gas or electricity. Every step of manufacturing the electronics used at work — from design to mining to parts fabrication and product assembly — creates emissions. Greenhouse gases are also created when the food and drink at company events is procured, transported and prepared. They’re also produced when Canadian oil and gas is used as fuel, whether in this country or another one. 

These emissions will still get into the atmosphere and heat the planet even if oil and gas producers succeed in their ambitious plans to capture and bury the emissions they create when extracting fossil fuels. Yet attempts to get Canadian companies to report them — even voluntarily — keep getting delayed. 

The term “Scope 3 emissions” is technical and bureaucratic. But these emissions, like all greenhouse gases, have real, on-the-ground consequences. The heat-trapping effect of fossil fuel use is driving extreme weather events in Canada and around the world, putting humans, wildlife and ecosystems at risk.

Here’s how to understand these arm’s-length emissions, and why scientists think it’s important to keep track of them, no matter how far away they are. 

What exactly are Scope 3 emissions?

The goal of the Scope scale is to categorize emissions to help understand where they come from and how to reduce them. Scope 1 are direct emissions, which come from sources owned or controlled by a company and include what’s produced by its facilities and vehicles. Scope 2 are indirect emissions produced by generating the many forms of energy — electricity, steam, heating and cooling — households and businesses use day-to-day.

Scope 3 are the least immediate. They encompass both “upstream” emissions made when a company uses a product or service and “downstream” emissions made when its own products or services are used. 

Sara Hastings-Simon, an associate professor in the department of earth, energy and environment at the University of Calgary, said labelling and, hopefully, tracking these emissions is a way to hold companies responsible for emissions created by the goods and services they are producing and encouraging people to purchase and use. Coined in 2001 and formalized in 2011, the term “Scope 3 emissions” considers the ripple effects of a company’s activities on global emissions. 

“Companies have a role, often, in creating the demand for their product,” Hastings-Simon said, which is why she believes they should be held accountable for emissions made all along its supply and use chain. 

Scope 3 are not some intangible drop in the pond of global emissions. They are frequently the “largest source” of emissions for companies and represents the “most significant” opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas globally, according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, a Washington, D.C.–based organization that creates global standards to measure emissions. Think about the Alberta oilsands: yes, mining and upgrading bitumen creates emissions. But the burning of the products — say, in consumers’ cars — creates far more of an impact. 

Scope 3 emissions aren’t just a big deal for the oil and gas industry. The Climate Disclosure Project, a non-profit based in the U.K., estimates that more than 90 per cent of emissions from sectors including real estate, financial services, capital goods and mining can be classified as Scope 3.

Canadians in favour of Scope 3 reporting have argued the same. In 2022, the federal NDP stated Scope 3 represent “an overwhelming majority” of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, in a report from the Standing Committee on Natural Resources looking at Canada’s long-debated emissions cap. 

In the report, the NDP said that in 2019, emissions from fossil fuels exported by Canada were 954 million tonnes, while total domestic emissions were just 730 million tonnes.“To leave them out of any regulation under a cap would be irresponsible,” the party stated.

What are the criticisms of tracking Scope 3 emissions? 

Some fossil fuel companies have said making them responsible for Scope 3 emissions could lead to actions that are actually contrary to climate goals.

Companies like ExxonMobil, Shell and BP do disclose Scope 3 emissions across their operations worldwide. For example, Shell reported customer emissions from using Shell products in 2024 totaled nearly half a billion tonnes of Scope 3 emissions. 

But a February 2022 report by environmental academics in Japan noted that ExxonMobil argued that reporting Scope 3 could be “misleading.” The paper cited a 2021 ExxonMobil report in which the company argues that if it were to sell natural gas to a country that then reduced the use of coal, it “would result in an overall reduction of global emissions but would increase Scope 3 emissions reported by the Company.”

Others have argued that tracking Scope 3 is “double counting”: because Scope 3 emissions involve so many businesses and producers in a supply chain, they may each be claiming the same emissions. It’s a potential overlap critics say could lead to a distorted view of emissions reductions. The argument is that a manufacturer might track the transportation of its goods as Scope 1 emissions — but all of the retailers and distributors who receive those goods could track them as Scope 3.

Several academic studies and frameworks note ways to make a precise calculation that avoids double counting. 

And Steven Young, an industrial ecologist and associate professor at the University of Waterloo, said calculating Scope 3 isn’t about tracking the total amount of emissions — it’s about companies taking responsibility for the entire supply chain they’re part of creating. 

“Part of the ambition was, well, it’s sort of double counting who’s responsible, but that’s kind of a good thing, if more than one organization is looking out for emissions reductions and management,” he said. 

Hastings-Simon said Scope 3 emissions calculations become essential if a company is claiming to be a part of a “low-carbon solution.” This gets back to the ambitious plans for carbon capture in Canada’s oilsands: even if all the emissions created during production were kept out of the atmosphere, exported fossil fuels would still create greenhouse gases when used elsewhere. 

“If there isn’t a credible explanation for how Scope 3 emissions will be reduced … then from a risk perspective a company should be able to explain why they see a market for their products in a future if there are broad global commitments to move to a net-zero future,” she said. 

The non-profits InfluenceMap and Greenpeace have criticized the Pathways Alliance group of Canadian oilsands companies for not including Scope 3 emissions in public plans to reduce the effect of their emissions, including through carbon capture. Pathways Alliance did not respond to a list of questions from The Narwhal about its Scope 3 emissions or these criticisms. 

Oil and gas companies “aren’t just meeting a demand but actually creating more demand and thus can be considered responsible for some of these emissions,” Hastings-Simon said, pointing to the explosive growth of investment in petrochemical-based plastic production as one example. 

Those in favour of Scope 3 reporting also say it’s key to identifying western corporations that place the most environmentally damaging parts of their supply chains in the Global South. Shifting the burden of those emissions onto those nations while the west seemingly meets climate targets, is a practice scholars call “Carbon Colonialism.”

At the heart of creating — and regulating — these standards is the understanding that global carbon emissions must be drastically cut to avoid the most severe effects of climate change. 

To be specific, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol reports the world needs to reduce emissions by as much as 85 per cent below what we put out in 2000 by 2050 in order to prevent the global temperature from increasing beyond 2 C above pre-industrial levels. Above that level “will produce increasingly unpredictable and dangerous impacts for people and ecosystems” — and Canada is already experiencing an increase in extreme weather that Environment and Climate Change Canada has linked to climate change. 

Are Scope 3 emissions regulated in Canada?

Fun fact: right now, there’s no universal requirement for Canadian corporations to disclose the full range of their emissions. 

Some industries are subject to a patchwork system of disclosure regulations, particularly concerning Scope 1. Since 2004, the federal government has required facilities that produce 10,000 tonnes or more of greenhouse gases annually to report emissions every year. Many provinces have similar regulations that kick in around 10,000 tonnes — although in Manitoba, the threshold is 50,000 tonnes. 

Attempts to introduce Scope 3 reporting — even voluntarily — have been delayed.

Last year, the Canadian Sustainability Standards Board gave corporations a deadline of 2027 to start reporting voluntarily — a timeline it said would prevent the move having an overly negative effect on markets. 

As of 2024, the federal Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions started requiring banks and insurance companies to report on plans to address the impact of climate change on their operations. The office has said the rationale behind the move is to protect those industries from legal accusations that they failed to protect investors from risks associated with climate change, such as the cost of extreme weather damages. 

Technically, those regulations make Scope 3 reporting mandatory — but that requirement, too, has been delayed, until 2028. The office said it wanted to align with the Canadian Sustainability Standards Board’s choice to push back Scope 3 reporting policies. It kept Scope 1 and Scope 2 disclosure deadlines in place: depending on the size of the institution, those kick in this year and early next. 

And in April, the Canadian Securities Administrators also delayed its December 2024 pledge to develop “a climate-related disclosure rule.” The group, an umbrella organization of provincial and territorial securities regulators, said in a press release it was pausing plans to figure out disclosure rules for both climate risks and employee diversity, as “in recent months, the global economic and geopolitical landscape has rapidly and significantly changed.”

Climate experts say movement on the issue is too sluggish given the urgency of global warming. Especially since the standards will be voluntary anyway. 

Hastings-Simon said delays on Scope 3 reporting raise a lot of “red flags,” as Scope 3 is a long-established concept corporations should be prepared for. She’s concerned a longer timeline gives companies time to push back against climate regulation altogether.

“Why is there this need for delay?” she said, emphasizing the importance of the government and its agencies having the full picture of Canada’s emissions. If investors or the public want to understand if a company is prioritizing decarbonization, it’s impossible to get the full picture without a Scope 3 disclosure, she said.

How can we reduce Scope 3 emissions?

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol has suggestions on how companies can start tackling Scope 3 emissions. These include reducing the distance between the supplier and the consumer and reducing commutes by offering remote work.

John Robinson, a professor of global affairs and the environment at the University of Toronto, has been leading a team examining how the school can cut its Scope 3 footprint. He said there are essentially two options: either reduce the activity producing the emissions or switch to an alternative activity that results in fewer greenhouse gases. 

He said the first option is under an institution’s direct control. For example, The University of Toronto is trying to make its campus more pedestrian-friendly, so that staff and students can move around emissions-free. 

It’s harder to control the emissions coming from manufacturing and shipping of goods and services it doesn’t produce. 

“Since the activity … can’t always be eliminated or reduced, there is a lot of focus on finding lower-emissions alternatives,” Robinson said.

The tool then is lifecycle assessment, he said. The process aims to calculate the total amount of emissions produced by the goods and services that went into creating an item, allowing institutions to make informed decisions about alternatives. If the school were purchasing desks, for example, it could consider multiple desks from multiple suppliers, comparing how much wood each uses, along with what kind of wood it is and where it came from. Then it could choose the option with the lowest emissions. 

Several consulting firms have software that can help with this calculation, Robinson said. And his own students can do it — as long as they have the information. 

What is the Carney government doing about Scope 3 emissions?

In short, not much. 

Even when the Canadian Sustainability Standards Board’s list comes into play, it will be voluntary. “It doesn’t have much teeth. You can put the information out there and some decision-makers will act on it, but it’s a pretty weak tool,” Young said. 

He said what’s proven to be more effective is carbon pricing — being charged for making emissions as an incentive to reduce them. But one of the first things Mark Carney did after becoming prime minister was remove Canada’s consumer carbon tax. While there is still a price for large emitters, Young said that misses smaller actors in the supply chain.

Meanwhile, Carney has repeatedly said Canada should be a leader in carbon capture and storage, which involves containing the carbon dioxide at the point of emission and then burying it deep underground. 

It’s a technology that has yet to be done at scale and it won’t tackle Scope 3 emissions at all. It’s also expensive. 

Young said carbon capture is a “pacifier” for the oil industry. “It’s a delay tactic, and it won’t work,” he said. “Why would we waste billions trying to come up with a techno fix that only prolongs a bunch of industries that don’t want to change?” 

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The Doug Ford government wants to give itself the power to dictate more of the rules around how Ontario protects its drinking water.

The Ministry of Red Tape Reduction said the process in place to change the rules around drinking water is “overly complex and slow.” It said reforming that process will support housing construction and development, while keeping water safeguards in place.

But one expert said the move will take away power from local committees tasked with protecting their region’s water supply, centralizing it in the hands of the government.

If the government wants to beef up some local water protections, some tweaks to the process could be useful, according to Theresa McClenaghan, executive director of the Canadian Environmental Law Association. But without more details from the government clarifying how it will use its new powers, she added, it could also open the door to weaker public health protections down the road.

That’s a particularly ominous thought for some, coming 25 years after the Walkerton tragedy, which killed seven people and caused 2,300 more to become seriously ill, when the water supply in the town on the east side of Lake Huron became contaminated with E. coli from cattle manure.

Ontario Green Party leader Mike Schreiner said the changes amount to “reducing the power of independent, evidence-based experts and transferring that authority to the minister.”

“It certainly weakens the protections that were put in place out of the lessons learned from Walkerton,” he said in an interview. That includes the need for overlapping layers of protection.

“In the same way that we have a lot of redundancies around air traffic control … if something goes wrong here, you want to make sure there are other checks and balances. Because once you contaminate drinking water, you put people’s lives at risk.”

Red Tape Reduction Minister Andrea Khanjin’s office did not respond to questions from The Narwhal before publication.

Green Party: Walkerton showed the need for multiple levels of Ontario drinking water protection

On Oct. 20, Premier Ford’s Progressive Conservative government introduced Bill 56, the Building a More Competitive Economy Act. Among other things, the bill would change the Clean Water Act, a law put in place following a two-year inquiry into the disaster in Walkerton.

The Walkerton inquiry found the incident could have been prevented if a local official had properly monitored drinking water treatments — and if the Progressive Conservative government of the time, under Mike Harris, had not cut funding to the provincial Environment Ministry.

One solution that came out of the inquiry was to establish a series of regional plans to protect Ontario’s sources of drinking water.

The plans are locally developed and overseen by conservationists, public representatives and others. They identify groundwater and surface water flows around local drinking water supplies, the risks posed by things like industrial pollution or agricultural runoff and what rules should be in place to mitigate those risks.

There are now 19 committees overseeing 38 of these water protection plans across the province. The area each plan oversees is based largely on the conservation authorities in Ontario, along with two others that apply to areas of Georgian Bay and the Bruce Peninsula, and are tailored to the geology and hydrology of each area.

McClenaghan, of the Canadian Environmental Law Association, said the point of this decentralized system is to make sure that each region has practical rules that make sense for them, including for local businesses.

The Building a More Competitive Economy Act would change the law so the government can dictate more of the specific wording around drinking water rules in the protection plans, instead of leaving that to the committees, she said.

For example, the province could mandate standardized wording to ban animal manure from certain zones around water wells, the cause of the Walkerton tragedy, instead of letting the local committee describe that as it chooses, she said.

“Basically, from what I can see, it’s just substituting the current system with a more prescriptive approach,” she said.

“It will remove some flexibility and approach from the committees — and I’ll be quite keen to find out from committees if they think some of their current approaches wouldn’t be permitted.”

The province might also step in to block a water protection committee’s specific approach to dealing with a threat to its local water supply, McClenaghan said. But she added Ontarians won’t know specific details until the government clarifies its role. That won’t happen until the Building a More Competitive Economy Act, which is being debated in the legislature, is passed.

Schreiner said one of the lessons from Walkerton was the need to have a “multi-barrier approach” and the committees were set up “to take the politics out of it.”

Having a multi-step system in place to ensure companies can’t carry out activities with a high risk of contamination, he said, may have prevented the extent of the mercury poisoning that happened in Grassy Narrows First Nation, where drinking water has been contaminated for decades.

In a press release, the government said it wants to change the clean water law because current requirements like consultation periods and ministerial approval can take years for even “routine” projects with pre-defined protections, like replacing an existing well.

It said it would be “simplifying consultation” and “expanding what counts as a minor change” to the water protection plans. This would support “housing and infrastructure development,” the government claimed, while keeping “strong protections for source water in place” as well as “timely, effective safeguards for municipal drinking water sources.”

The changes are “streamlining” so that “unnecessary repetition” is avoided, Environment Minister Todd McCarthy told reporters the day the bill was introduced.

Ford plans to change both Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act

The government also said there would be upcoming changes to the Safe Drinking Water Act — a separate law that makes sure tap water can be consumed and establishes rules around water treatment — that would let new wells or intakes start supplying water while the protection plans were still being updated.

The Building a More Competitive Economy Act is not the first time the Ford government has enacted laws that may jeopardize the province’s drinking water protections, according to McClenaghan’s organization.

In a blog post from April, the Canadian Environmental Law Association said the two-year-old Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act, that allowed municipalities to more easily sprawl, could allow the use of ministerial zoning orders to bypass some drinking water protection rules.

And it said the More Homes Built Faster Act, introduced the year prior under Bill 23, limited the power of conservation authorities to stop developments that could harm water sources.

Ontario’s Auditor General released a report in March which found the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks doesn’t have the capacity to regularly inspect all 1,816 non-municipal drinking water systems it regulates.

Some communities in Ontario, like Six Nations of the Grand River, still do not have safe drinking water at all.

Meanwhile, the Ford government called on the federal government earlier this year not to entrench the right to clean drinking water in law.

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The High Seas Treaty reached a major milestone last week after more than 60 countries ratified the agreement, passing a key threshold that sets the stage for new conservation of international waters. But Canada has yet to formally approve the treaty. Until it does, the country with the longest coastline in the world will have limited opportunities to participate in treaty processes, including environmental assessments and efforts to establish marine protected areas in international waters.

The High Seas Treaty is the first international agreement aimed at conserving and ensuring sustainable use of biodiversity in marine areas that fall outside any single country’s jurisdiction — an area covering about two-thirds of the open ocean. After nearly two decades of negotiations, the treaty establishes new tools to create marine protected areas in international waters, a crucial step for meeting the global commitment to conserve 30 per cent of land and waters by 2030. 

It also lays out legally binding rules to strengthen scientific cooperation and ensure the benefits derived from marine biodiversity used for food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and more are shared fairly.

“It’s a historic milestone to have this kind of law in place,” Stephanie Hewson, a staff lawyer focused on marine conservation with the non-profit West Coast Environmental Law, said in an interview.

While a patchwork of international rules govern specific activities like shipping and fishing, this is the first treaty to look holistically at marine biodiversity in the high seas. Covering almost 70 per cent of the planet, the high seas include biodiversity hot spots like Saya de Malha Bank, an enormous seagrass community found in the Indian Ocean between the Seychelles and Mauritius, and the Costa Rica Thermal Dome, which offers ideal conditions for an immense bloom of microscopic blue-green algae. That algae forms the base of a rich food web that supports blue whales, dolphins, sea turtles, sharks and rays. 

Until it ratifies, Canada won’t be part of environmental assessments, decisions around marine protected areas

Canada signed onto the treaty in March 2024, touting its importance for meeting international conservation targets that 196 countries committed to under the global biodiversity framework, which Canadian officials helped broker in Montreal almost three years ago. “We simply cannot get there without a treaty to protect our high seas beyond national jurisdiction,” Steven Guilbeault, then-minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada, said in a statement at the time.

Canada’s signature signalled its support, but the country won’t be able to fully participate in treaty processes until it ratifies the agreement. In Canada, ratification involves tabling the treaty in the House of Commons for 21 days to give members of Parliament an opportunity to consider the agreement — but the final decision rests with cabinet.

While Hewson said as far as she knows the federal government still intends to ratify the treaty, which she called “great news,” she warned “it’s not ratified, till it’s ratified.”

“Canada has been instrumental in moving this treaty forward,” she said. But, she added, its ability to lead or even participate in the development of treaty processes and institutions moving forward will be limited until it ratifies.

It also means Canada wouldn’t be part of decisions about where and how to establish marine protected areas in the high seas and limited in its participation in environmental impact assessments of planned activities that could harm biodiversity — even if they’re just outside the country’s waters, Hewson warned. While countries that have not ratified the treaty will still be able to provide comments to be considered during environmental impact assessments, parties to the treaty have additional opportunities to participate in the processes. 

Global Affairs Canada and Fisheries and Oceans Canada did not respond to The Narwhal’s request for comment by publication time.

Ratification milestone celebrated, but more work remains before treaty can benefit ailing seas

The timeline for Canada’s ratification remains unclear. Regardless, Hewson said it was an exciting moment when the treaty secured the 60 state ratifications required for it to become international law.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called it “a historic achievement for the ocean and for multilateralism.”

“As we confront the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, this agreement is a lifeline for the ocean and humanity,” he said in a statement.

The milestone came just days before the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research released its second annual Planetary Health Check report, which warned “the world’s oceans are acidifying to an unsafe degree.”

Oceans are a major carbon sink. By capturing significant amounts of carbon dioxide every year they play a crucial role in moderating climate change driven by humanity’s excessive burning of fossil fuels. But absorbing such large amounts of carbon dioxide has caused the oceans to become more acidic, threatening species and undermining vital marine habitats and food webs.

Rebecca Hubbard, the director of the High Seas Alliance of more than 70 civil society groups advocating for a strong treaty, celebrated passing the ratification threshold, but cautioned it’s “not the finish line.”

“The treaty’s true strength lies in universal participation,” she said in a statement, urging all remaining nations to ratify the agreement. Like Canada, the United States, China, the United Kingdom and Australia have all signed but not yet ratified the agreement. Neither Russia nor Japan have signed.

In the meantime, work is underway to build the institutions and processes for implementing the treaty. Proposals are also being developed for marine protected areas to conserve the biodiversity hot spots, including the Sargasso Sea, an area bounded by four Atlantic Ocean currents known for its floating masses of seaweed that offer rich habitat for a range of species. 

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When temperatures climb, the staff at Regina’s SOFIA House are even busier than usual. The organization, whose name stands for Support Of Families In Affliction, provides transition housing for people escaping intimate partner violence. Executive director Christa Baron says there are “noticeable” differences in the calls and requests it receives during heat waves.

There are more calls per day and more frequent calls from those already on the waitlist, expressing renewed urgency. Victims are also more distressed because of how the weather makes them feel — especially those whose homes don’t have a way of keeping them cool.

“Maybe you are in a situation that is volatile and then the presence of, say, smoke in the air for days on end exacerbates that and results in heightened irritability and crisis,” Baron explains. “The impact of heat and hunger and wanting to be safe and secure all contribute to that.” 

Extreme heat is a major stressor on the human body. Physically, it can lead to heat exhaustion, which shows up as dizziness, nausea or vomiting, headaches and extreme thirst. Mentally, heat can impair decision-making and the ability to concentrate. Together, these physical and cognitive symptoms can cause frustration and irritability — and aggression. 

Studies from around the world have shown that as the temperature goes up, so do rates of all kinds of violence, from assault to gun violence. While in theory that affects everyone, in reality, those who are already vulnerable to the effects of climate change are impacted the most. 

Extreme weather such as heat “brings to light systemic inequalities that are in communities in Saskatchewan and across Canada,” Baron says. That means its effects are felt more acutely by residents of dense neighbourhoods with less green space and by people who live in housing without air conditioning. 

It also means the risk of heat-related violence threatens women and girls the most.

A brief from the United Nations found every single degree Celsius of increased global temperature is associated with a 4.7 per cent increase in domestic violence. A study from Spain found intimate partner femicide, or murder of a female partner or relative, increases as much as 28 per cent during heat waves. 

Across Canada, police statistics suggest a similar link. Saskatchewan has the country’s highest reported rates of intimate partner violence, which its RCMP force defines as assault, harassment, uttering threats, sexual assault and more by a spouse, ex-spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, ex-partner or other intimate relationship. According to new data from Statistics Canada, Saskatchewan saw 128 instances of intimate partner violence per 100,000 people in July and August 2023 and 126 per 100,000 people in July and August 2024. In the cooler months of January and February, meanwhile, there were 115 cases per 100,000 in 2023 and 112 per 100,000 in 2024.  

It’s far from the only place in Canada with this problem. Statistics Canada showed similar seasonal trends in every single province and territory, as did data from local police departments in Victoria, Calgary and Toronto. And globally, it’s a troubling pattern that is predicted to increase. By the end of the 21st century, the United Nations estimates that 10 per cent of intimate partner violence will be linked to climate change — billions of cases that could be prevented if climate change is mitigated.

As Earth warms up, experts say there are steps governments can take now to protect women, girls and everyone in Canada from heat-related violence. But it’s a complex problem that requires wide-ranging solutions, from education on healthy relationships, to more funding for emergency and permanent housing, to simply helping people stay cool on hot days.

The link between heat and violence 

The cross-country summertime increase in domestic violence is part of a general spike in violent crime that happens as temperatures rise. The American Psychological Association is another body that’s found violent crimes, including murder and aggravated assault, are more common in the hot summer months. Here at home, Statistics Canada recorded a of 25 per cent increase in overall reports of violent crime nationwide in the summer of 2021, compared to colder months.

That includes gendered violence. In the country’s most populous province, Ontario, there were 22 per cent more intimate partner violence cases reported in July and August 2023 compared to January and February of the same year: 6,635 compared to 5,302. Last summer — when Environment and Climate Change Canada reported record-breaking heat across the country — Ontario had almost 16 per cent more intimate partner violence calls than in the winter, accounting for 985 more cases during hot months.  

Looking at police data from a few big cities, the trend holds. In Victoria, Calgary and Toronto, reports of intimate partner violence were higher in summer than winter in both 2023 and 2024, with the biggest difference being a 23 per cent spike in calls in Toronto two years ago. 

Heat makes us irritable, impairs our cognitive function and makes us more impulsive. Those debilitating impacts compound with factors like sleep deprivation — whether because of a too-hot sleep environment or socializing into the night — that increase the risk of violence as well. So do drinking and recreational drugs, whether used to address insomnia or mental health challenges or simply because there are more opportunities to hang out and indulge on sweaty summer nights, including at parties and festivals. 

Patricia Kostouros points to the Calgary Stampede as an example. A professor in the faculty of health, community and education at the city’s Mount Royal University, she has studied how emergency services support victims of intimate partner violence. At the summertime Stampede, she says, people often drink excess alcohol and police reports of domestic violence spike. 

It’s not easy to pin down a single cause. It could be alcohol: in 2017, University of Calgary researchers found that domestic violence calls increased during the Stampede, but noted similar increases after big sports games and on New Years Eve, other occasions known for excessive drinking. But it could also be temperature, since Calgary’s police force reported an almost 25 per cent increase in domestic violence and domestic assaults in the hottest months of 2024. 

Both together certainly aren’t good. Kostouros says there are ways the Stampede’s organizers could limit temperature-related risks, such as keeping water accessible for easy hydration and cool-down. In an email, a spokesperson for the Stampede told The Narwhal the organization does do that: following public health authority guidance, it adds extra water fountains and misting stations when temperatures exceed 28 C.

“At the Calgary Stampede, we believe that putting on a cowboy hat should elevate your behaviour and sense of class — not diminish it,” the email said. 

Things that alleviate heat, like access to air conditioning, can diminish related risks — but not everyone has access to it. Take outdoor workers, for example. Shamminaz Polen, the manager of international programs at Oxfam Canada, says they might be especially vulnerable to the type of physical and mental heat stresses that increase the risk of violence, since there’s no relief from the heat at all. 

“If you are working under the sun when it’s 40 C outside, you are definitely not in the same mental health space as you would be if you were in an air-conditioned office,” Polen says. 

Yet if heat prevents a family member from working, that loss of vital income can also turn the tension up in a home, too. 

Because hot environments contribute to irritation, impaired decision-making and aggression, there are regional risks. While 61 per cent of Canadian households have air conditioning nationally, it varies widely across the country. B.C. is the lowest, with just 32 per cent of homes having it — a number that drops to 17 per cent for low-income households. 

But even when a way to cool homes is available, paying for it could present a different problem. Angela Marie MacDougall, the executive director of Vancouver-based Battered Women’s Support Services, says more costly utility bills during heat waves can “exacerbate financial stresses and economic abuse” — she says it’s common for an abusive partner to withhold money and cite rising bills as the reason. 

Similar factors were at play during the early COVID-19 pandemic, which saw people trapped at home, many suddenly without an income. The resulting increased rates of gender-based violence globally, including in Canada, were a clear example of how disasters layer on top of societal vulnerability to make risk spike — some experts refer to intimate partner violence during lockdown as the “shadow pandemic.” 

The COVID-19 pandemic also showed how ineffective Canadian governments can be at supporting victims. Kostouros says the federal government gave provinces money to work with shelters to do “whatever they needed to do to make sure everybody was safe.” But each province had different approaches to how the money could be used, rules that in some cases made the funds useless. 

She says that some shelters wanted to build extra bathrooms, to reduce spaces in which clients would be gathered together, but some provinces considered that a long-term capital expense, not a pandemic-specific accommodation. A 2024 report from Women’s Shelters Canada breaking down 2020 emergency funding found that money for renovations was the biggest gap. 

Which women are most vulnerable to heat-related violence? 

Data provided by police simply lists reported crimes, not the sex or gender of perpetrators and victims. But it’s impossible not to read an uptick of cases of intimate partner violence as an increase in violence against women. 

That’s not to say that men don’t experience violence from people they know and even love, but it’s indisputable that women experience domestic violence more commonly. Statistics Canada reports women and girls are “significantly” more likely than men and boys to have reported any form of intimate violence, including physical abuse (23 per cent of all women and girls compared to 17 per cent of all men and boys), sexual abuse (12 per cent compared to 2) and psychological abuse (43 per cent versus 35). 

Violence experienced by women is also considerably worse, according to Statistics Canada: they’re much more likely to experience severe forms of intimate partner violence such as performing sex acts they didn’t want to, being confined or locked in a room, being forced to have sex and being choked.

Reduced mobility is one reason women bear the brunt of climate-related violence, Polen says. Around the world, when the environment is hostile, people stay at home “as a survival strategy,” she explains. 

Heat, wildfires and floods often leave women trapped at home, taking care of children and isolated from friends and family. Shelters or police can also be out of reach when it’s too hot to leave the house, especially given underfunding of rural public transit. 

“Heat is a threat multiplier,” Sean Kidd, senior scientist and co-director of the Institute for Mental Health Policy Research at Toronto’s Centre of Addiction and Mental Health, says. 

Certain mental health diagnoses, like schizophrenia, are strongly associated with heat-related mortality, he says. Older adults are at greater risk, as are those who are pregnant. Unhoused individuals are more exposed to extreme heat and thus, see more grave health impacts. 

“Exposure to extreme heat, and climate change more broadly, are embedded in factors such as environmental racism and colonial violence,” Kidd, who is also an associate professor in the University of Toronto’s department of psychiatry, explains. 

This means that some women are more at risk than others. In early June, the Winnipeg Free Press reported Manitoba had already seen more than 17,000 wildfire evacuees this year, with at least 10,000 finding emergency lodging in the city. As columnist Niigaan Sinclair pointed out, the majority were from northern First Nations — creating an intersecting emergency for those attuned to the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit People.

“This city has had an influx of thousands of Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit peoples — individuals preyed upon by many forces here,” he wrote. 

MacDougall, of Battered Women’s Support Services in Vancouver, points out rural Indigenous communities face challenges accessing services during ordinary times. In times of disaster, victims’ entrapment is “so much more profound,” she says. When wildfires — like those that have raged across northern and western Canada for months now  — cut off roads and communication lines, it “prevents any kind of escape or intervention.” 

All types of extreme weather increase gender-based violence risk in Canada

The effects of climate change have already led to increased risk of intimate partner violence in Canada. As wildfire forced thousands to flee Fort McMurray, Alta. in 2016, for example, support programs became almost impossible to access when the only emergency shelter in the area closed. 

Then came coping with the aftermath. “When the fires happened in Fort McMurray, there was an increase in domestic violence afterwards because of the stress response from being out of a job or not having a home or having to live with limited income,” Kostouros of Mount Royal University says. 

Kostouros and her research partner, D. Gaye Warthe, have studied how emergency services help shelters maintain the safety of their residents. “Of course, we found that they didn’t help,” Kostouros says. 

She and Warthe looked at the aftermath of the 2013 floods in southern Alberta, which displaced approximately 100,000 people. They saw clear evidence emergency responders didn’t know how to support victims of intimate partner violence. 

For instance: at one evacuation centre, the names of people who had been evacuated were put up on a board for loved ones to locate them. Those who evacuated from shelters were given the same treatment, even though these victims often need to stay anonymous or not have their locations compromised, especially if they’re escaping a stalker or other violent partner. Luckily, a shelter worker who was at the evacuation centre intervened in time.

“There’s no protocol in place for protecting people who are fleeing violence, and that’s true across Canada,” Kostouros says.

Governments not addressing disaster impacts on gendered violence in a ‘meaningful way:’ advocate

Temporary housing for those fleeing natural disasters has also been problematic for victims of intimate partner violence. Kostouros says that often, victims are housed in the same location as their abuser — such as a hotel that’s been converted into an evacuation centre. 

The federal government does acknowledge survivors of gender-based violence, including domestic violence, are often at great risk during emergencies. In a statement to The Narwhal, Public Safety Canada said emergency management falls under provincial and territorial jurisdiction and those governments can access federal funding “to support survivors during emergencies” as long as the money is used in a way that aligns with the National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence. 

The department points to Prince Edward Island, which integrated emergency planning with federally funded gender-based violence efforts following Hurricane Fiona. Public Safety said Women and Gender Equality Canada can provide guidance to other provinces that want to do the same. 

For its part, the Public Health Agency of Canada recognizes that “during an emergency, any existing health inequities are often exacerbated,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement to The Narwhal. Its wildfire toolkit for public health authorities was recently updated with information on how evacuations can lead to increased risk of family violence, and the agency is developing a toolkit on evacuations which will include plans “to protect people who have experienced or are experiencing interpersonal violence, sexual violence and human trafficking.” 

Even if some governments are trying to address how emergencies affect gendered violence, “that’s not happening in a meaningful way,” MacDougall says, as the leader of a frontline organization responsible for providing real-time services for victims. 

“We want to be monitoring and reporting on [intimate partner violence] indicators during the climate crisis: things like [emergency room] visits and shelter access as well as deaths related to femicide,” she says. “But we’re just not seeing a climate policy right now that addresses risks for women generally.” 

Housing, education are crucial solutions to reduce climate-related risk of gendered violence 

At Regina’s SOFIA House, hot weather also brings schedule changes. There are a lot of kids on site when school is out, Baron says, so programming is adjusted. During times of extreme heat, her team moves events indoors, asks for seasonal donations of sunscreen, bug spray and water bottles and provides access to transit or rides so residents don’t have to walk. 

This is the type of programming Baron needs governments to support. She also wants more funding to support survivors as they transition out of the long-term shelter and return to independent living. 

Researchers and service providers all say addressing Canada’s housing affordability crisis is key. “The chances of somebody going back to a partner is quite high because they don’t have money, don’t have housing, their kids are unhoused. All these pressures make it easier to just return,” Kostouros says. 

MacDougall would like to see programs that automatically house victims or take abusers out of the home. Instead, she says, nation-wide waitlists for safe housing or other services stretch into months and even years. 

Kidd, from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, says housing access includes reducing  environmental stressors and ensuring people are safe and cool. This means designing communities to have adequate water and building affordable, climate-resilient housing with cooling mechanisms so that families trapped indoors are cool enough to reduce the risk of aggression between partners. 

He’d also like service providers and everyone else to learn about the impacts of heat on the body and mind, as well as strategies for cooling down to reduce heat-induced impacts like violence. 

“Early education is one of the best things we can do to change an issue,” Kotsouros says. For her, that means teaching people to watch out for the signs of intimate partner violence, including mandatory programs in schools.  

Ultimately, the most important way to decrease climate change-related intimate partner violence is to fight climate change itself. 

“The first step is to acknowledge that heat and warming is a problem,” Polen says. “Canada should emphasize that climate justice is gender justice. Any meaningful response to climate change must also account for how it increases violence against women and girls.” 

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A proposed ski resort in the heart of B.C.’s Interior won’t undergo a full environmental assessment despite concerns it could threaten critical habitat for grizzlies, wolverines and other wildlife. Instead, the Zincton resort proposal is being reviewed by the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture’s mountain resorts branch.

The Zincton Mountain Village would cover 4,500 hectares of private and Crown land in the Goat Range of the Selkirk Mountains in the Central Kootenays, about 16 kilometres east of New Denver, B.C. 

The resort was put forward by David Harley, founder of Valhalla Pure Outfitters, in December 2019. Zincton would be “a radical departure from existing resorts” with a focus on human-powered backcountry experiences, according to Harley’s press release, with backcountry skiing in the winter and mountain biking in the summer.Critics worry the resort could have significant impacts on Slocan Valley ecosystems. With beds for an estimated 1,700 guests, the Zincton proposal falls short of the 2,000-bed threshold that would automatically trigger a full environmental assessment. 

Harley did not respond to questions from The Narwhal by publication time.

In November 2024, Kootenay-based environmental group Wildsight wrote to provincial cabinet ministers to request the Zincton resort proposal undergo an environmental assessment to adequately evaluate its potential impacts on wildlife, watersheds and local traffic — impacts the group worries the mountain resorts branch review could fail to capture.

In February 2024, the Sn̓ʕaýckstx (Sinixt) Confederacy — whose traditional territory includes the area where the Zincton resort would be built — also called on the government to complete an environmental assessment for the project. 

“All impacts associated with the project must be considered in order to have a properly informed review and decision-making process,” Jarred-Michael Erickson, a spokesperson for the confederacy, wrote in a letter to the relevant ministers.

However, on July 24, chief executive assessment officer Alex MacLennan concluded sending the Zincton proposal through an environmental assessment “would be duplicative and is not required.”

“I am satisfied that the major projects review process led by the mountain resorts branch can fairly, effectively and appropriately address the concerns raised in the applications,” MacLennan wrote in his report rejecting the request for an environmental assessment.

‘It really deserves better protection’

Cindy Marchand, secretary of the executive committee at the Sn̓ʕaýckstx (Sinixt) Confederacy, called the decision wrong and said it ignores the perspective of the Sinixt.

“We do firmly believe that an environmental assessment based on scientific facts would be the best approach to study this critical wildlife habitat and the effects this could potentially cause,” Marchand told The Narwhal in an interview.

Simon Wiebe, Wildsight’s mining impacts and policy researcher, called the office’s decision disappointing.

“It was disappointing for them to not value this amazing, amazing ecosystem,” Wiebe said in an interview. “[The] Slocan Valley is a beautiful area that has been impacted by mining and by logging by other industries, and it really deserves better protection.”

The Ktunaxa Nation has also expressed concerns about the project. In 2023, the nation conducted its own evaluation of the potential effects recreational developments, including Zincton, could have on the North Slocan Valley. The resulting report concluded that boosting recreational access to the local backcountry would degrade and disrupt the habitat of grizzly, wolverine, moose, mountain goat and western toad populations.

“Results of this assessment find the cumulative effects of existing and proposed land-use activities within this narrow and vital corridor are considered high hazard,” the report stated.

Zincton’s review won’t be as stringent as it could be, critics say

Only projects that meet or exceed certain thresholds — like the 2,000-bed requirement for major resort proposals — are automatically evaluated under B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Act to determine how they could impact local ecosystems, communities and Indigenous Rights.

“Environmental assessments under the Environmental Assessment Act are intended for major projects with the greatest potential for significant adverse effects, without duplicating existing regulatory frameworks,” according to the environmental assessment office.

If a project doesn’t meet the legislated threshold, it will instead be reviewed by a dedicated office in another ministry, like the mountain resorts branch. From the branch, Zincton will receive a review similar to the environmental assessment office’s, taking into account potential environmental effects, First Nations Rights and economic factors.

But — like the projects it is designed to evaluate — the environmental assessment process is a step up from the evaluations done by other offices. It includes more detailed studies of a project’s potential environmental impacts, as well as more opportunities for First Nations and members of the public to weigh in.

Wiebe considers it the most stringent process for evaluating potential project impacts. With his background in mining, Wiebe worries Zincton’s construction could stir up sediment and debris from old mining operations in the valley, potentially unleashing contaminants that have sat undisturbed and relatively harmless for decades.

“Without an environmental assessment studying the geomorphology and the sedimentology of how this construction process will affect downstream ecosystems, we don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “A big part of why we want the environmental assessment is because this is a contaminated site, and it’s currently somewhat benign. If we’re stirring up all these things, is this going to impact the downstream ecosystems?”

The environmental assessment process also provides funding to support First Nations participating in the review, something the mountain resorts branch review does not include.

“Without this environmental assessment, we feel like this process is going to move forward without getting involvement from not only us, but other Indigenous nations, and not getting that Indigenous perspective,” Marchand said.

Ministry review will continue with no timeline to wrap up

So what comes next for the Zincton resort proposal?

According to the mountain resorts branch, the office is awaiting the proponent’s response to feedback on its environmental overview assessment for the project. Despite Harley’s hopes that Zincton might be welcoming visitors by the end of 2021, the project is only at the second stage of the branch’s five-stage review process.

The review process will continue “until the risk of potential negative impacts and critical issues are sufficiently addressed,” the branch stated, noting that there is no timeline for it to be completed.

Marchand said the confederacy will continue to push for Zincton’s impacts to be fully evaluated.

“This area is way too important to us. It’s also important to sensitive wildlife, such as the grizzly bears, the wolverines, the caribou, the mountain goats,” she said. “This is definitely something we’re not giving up on.”

Wildsight will also be keeping a close eye on the project’s review, Wiebe said.

“We’re just hoping to push forward with a robust mountain resorts branch process, which is unfortunate,” he said. “It’s not what we wanted, and that’s not what’s probably best for local communities, but we’re going to continue to stay engaged.”

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There’s something in the air in Aamjiwnaang First Nation. The community is located next to an industrial area of Sarnia, Ont., known to many as Chemical Valley. There are dozens of factories and refineries here, accounting for 40 per cent of Canada’s chemical industry — and an enormous amount of air pollution.

That pollution comes in many forms, but the levels of one chemical in particular caused Aamjiwnaang to declare a state of emergency last spring. Benzene is a byproduct of petroleum refining, used to make Styrofoam and other plastic materials. It’s also a volatile organic compound — a category of chemicals that evaporate easily into the air. Inhaling very high amounts can make you very sick, very quickly. And constantly breathing benzene-laden air, even in very small amounts, can do a lot of damage, too — notably by increasing your risk of leukemia and other cancers. 

Ontario’s Environment Ministry set emissions benchmarks much higher than those that triggered the state of emergency, which remains active to this day. A recent investigation by The Narwhal showed the province knew about the health risks this posed to the Aamjiwnaang community, and failed for years to take action that would meaningfully control benzene exposure. 

It wasn’t until after the state of emergency was declared that the ministry introduced stricter regulations aimed at controlling emissions from INEOS Styrolution, the chemical plant located across the street from Aamjiwnaang’s band office, and the primary source of benzene emissions in the area. 

Ontario’s Environment Ministry didn’t answer detailed questions related to these findings. INEOS Styrolution said it “consistently operated within the strict limits” set by the ministry. The company halted operations last spring and went on to decommission the facility, but said the closure was not related to the benzene spikes.

How much benzene in the air is too much? And what does that actually look like? Here’s a graphic, numerical look at the story of benzene pollution in Aamjiwnaang. Each represents concentrations of the chemical, averaged over different periods of time, and are expressed in micrograms per cubic metre of air. 

This series of graphics demonstrates the large discrepancy between the levels known to cause measurable health impacts, the levels that residents say caused serious symptoms of illness and the levels the Ontario government used to assess whether the company was doing enough to control its emissions.

Benzene levels, averaged over a single hour

191 micrograms per cubic metre, left: This was the maximum hourly reading recorded at an air monitor in Aamjiwnaang on April 25, 2024, the day the First Nation triggered a state of emergency. The community has recorded even higher hourly concentrations; in 2023, the maximum hourly level recorded was 372 micrograms per cubic metre. The First Nation now uses a benchmark of 27 micrograms per cubic metre to trigger the closure of some facilities.

580 micrograms per cubic metre, right: Ontario also gave this number to INEOS in 2019 as a benchmark to assess the risk of short-term health impacts. It’s based on standards from Texas that have been criticized as too lenient and allowing unacceptable increases in the risk of cancer. It is also several times higher than the levels in Aamjiwnaang when several people went to the hospital with headaches and nausea.

Benzene levels, averaged over a 24-hour period

2.3 micrograms per cubic metre, left: This is the level the Ontario government says could indicate a higher cancer risk with long-term exposure.

50 micrograms per cubic metre, centre: This was the average concentration level recorded by an air monitor in Aamjiwnaang on April 16, 2024. Around the same time, people in the community reported headaches and nausea, strong enough to send some to the hospital.

320 micrograms per cubic metre, right: This is the level the Ontario government said, in 2019, it would use to evaluate the risk of acute exposure from emissions from INEOS Styrolution, located across the street from Aamjiwnaang’s band office, playground and sports fields.

Benzene levels, averaged over a full year

0.45 micrograms per cubic metre, left: This is Ontario’s legal air quality limit for benzene. It is based on health studies that say this concentration, over a lifetime, presents a non-negligible increase in the risk of cancer. This isn’t enforced across the board; facilities that can’t meet it, including INEOS in Sarnia, are required to report emissions to the government and bring exposure down to a level that is “as low as reasonably achievable.”

4.5 micrograms per cubic metre, right: In 2019, the Ontario government told INEOS it should aim to gradually reduce its benzene emissions to this level to reduce the cancer risk to people nearby. It’s also the level established as a regulatory limit in June 2024. Annual recorded concentrations of benzene in Aamjiwnaang, measured at the band office monitoring station, were about 6.5 micrograms per cubic metre in 2019 and in 2023. That’s about ten times as much as industrial areas in Michigan and California, included for comparison in a 2024 health report.

— With files from Emma McIntosh

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“A non-negligible risk of cancer.” “Significant elevated benzene concentrations.” “Risks to the public.” 

That’s how the Ontario government referred to emissions of the carcinogen benzene from the INEOS Styrolution petrochemical plant in Sarnia in 2023 — a year before those emissions sparked a state of emergency for neighbouring Aamjiwnaang First Nation. 

Internal documents show Ontario’s Environment Ministry had noted similar concerns since at least 2019. Still, it declined to impose a strict limit on the plant’s benzene levels until the 2024 state of emergency, instead ordering the company to install new emissions-control technology, among other measures.

Benzene is a byproduct of petroleum refining that’s also found in crude oil and fuel. It’s one of the foundational ingredients in plastic that, along with other chemicals, can be used to make anything from food containers to, in INEOS’ case, rubber.

INEOS, which has since shut down its plant in Sarnia, said its benzene emissions were within the limits set by the Ontario government. The plant is one of several dozen petroleum refineries and petrochemical plants in an area of Sarnia known as Chemical Valley. The Ontario government has struggled to control emissions from the facilities for decades, even as Aamjiwnaang First Nation has sounded alarms about how pollution has harmed its members’ health. 

Ontario’s Environment Ministry did not answer detailed questions from The Narwhal about the documents and how it regulates air pollution in Chemical Valley. The Narwhal also sent detailed questions to INEOS Styrolution. The company did not answer most of them, but sent a statement saying it prioritizes safety and has “consistently operated within the strict limits” set by the Environment Ministry. “INEOS Styrolution remains steadfast in its commitment to protecting the health and safety of our employees and the community, and we have consistently adhered to [the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks’] emissions requirements,” spokesperson April Ludwikowski wrote.

The ministry’s response to the benzene emissions from the INEOS plant is one example of a pattern pieced together by The Narwhal through 250 pages of internal ministry documents, obtained through two freedom of information requests. 

The records outline several steps the Ontario government could have taken to address air pollution in Chemical Valley — but didn’t.

As the ministry sent compliance orders, benzene spikes continued

The records obtained by The Narwhal show Ontario’s Environment Ministry made three attempts to cut benzene emissions from INEOS through directives called compliance orders. The ministry uses compliance orders to compel companies to fix issues, or take certain steps to prevent potential harm to people and the environment. 

In the years leading up to the 2024 emergency in Aamjiwnaang, the ministry sent three orders to INEOS — one in 2019, another in 2020 and a third in 2023. The orders urged INEOS to gradually lower its benzene emissions closer to Ontario’s health-based air quality guidelines. 

But earlier in 2019, the ministry had also sent INEOS another set of guidelines. These ones were based on benzene standards in Texas, which experts have criticized for being too loose and putting residents at higher risk of cancer. They recommend benzene levels remain below an hourly average of up to 580 micrograms per cubic metre, which is three times more than the levels recorded in Aamjiwnaang as people went to the emergency room in 2024.

An INEOS Styrolution spokesperson told The Narwhal the 580 micrograms per cubic metre was an “established” emissions limit set by the ministry, and that the company never breached it. The Environment Ministry did not answer questions about how it applied those numbers to INEOS.

“Ontario wasn’t looking at all the cumulative impacts, which we’ve been saying for decades now,” Aamjiwnaang Chief Janelle Nahmabin said. “[It was] just allowing exceedances and not looking out for the health and safety of our community or the environment.”

Despite the orders, elevated levels of benzene continued to waft across the road from INEOS to Aamjiwnaang for years. 

Though some of the steps outlined in the first two orders helped, one air monitor near the plant showed emissions of benzene that “increased each year,” according to the 2023 order. The same document noted six incidents in 2022 and 2023 where air monitors detected “significantly elevated” concentrations of benzene from INEOS, including some where air monitors recorded levels even higher than the ones that prompted the 2024 state of emergency.

Sometimes the emissions came from spills, according to the 2023 order. Other times, they came from planned maintenance or the “prolonged storage” of waste with benzene in it. None technically violated the laws governing the plant. 

“INEOS [is] concerned that orders require them to do too much, too soon,” said one late 2023 briefing document prepared by the Environment Ministry. “They believed that since they were complying with the [standard], they shouldn’t have to do more.” 

INEOS and the ministry didn’t answer questions about the orders. 

The province sent INEOS a fourth order in spring 2024, as benzene levels spiked again, sickening people in Aamjiwnaang. That order required INEOS to notify the public if readings of benzene spiked, develop another plan to “address benzene from wastewater” and investigate where the carcinogen might be coming from. 

High levels of benzene were reported again a week later, prompting Aamjiwnaang to issue its state of emergency.

INEOS temporarily shut down the plant following the ministry’s 2024 order, five years after the ministry first raised red flags about its benzene emissions. The company soon announced it would close the plant entirely due to the “economics of the facility within a wider industry context.” It said the situation was not related to the benzene spikes. 

Chief Nahmabin said the Ontario government sent the orders without checking with Aamjiwnaang to make sure they were effective — a “big miss,” as the community has asked time and again to be involved in decisions about its territory.

More and more, Aamjiwnaang is taking the regulation of industry into its own hands, writing air standards for the reserve and working with the federal government on a pilot project to address environmental racism. “We cannot wait for governments to be the one that acts for us,” Nahmabin said.

Ontario skipped a planned review of its benzene standards for petroleum and petrochemical plants

Though Ontario has strict air quality standards for benzene, it said it’s not “technically and economically feasible” for all industrial facilities to meet them. So some plants follow different sets of rules called technical standards, which require them to use the best available equipment to lower emissions as much as possible. Seven facilities in the Sarnia area, including INEOS Styrolution’s now-shuttered plant, are regulated by technical standards for the petroleum refining and petrochemical industries.

The standards were penned under the former Liberal government in 2016. At the time, the documents obtained by The Narwhal show, the Environment Ministry didn’t realize how much facilities were actually emitting. Industry-provided figures were “underestimated,” according to an internal memo from late 2023. They pointed to INEOS Styrolution as an example, saying the company was emitting maximum concentrations of benzene 15 times higher than what the province was aware of. 

Company spokesperson Ludwikowski said INEOS maintains “full transparency” in its emissions reporting. Ludwikowski did not directly address questions about the estimates, but denied that the company “underreported our emissions or misled the regulator.”

“Property line emissions monitoring at our Sarnia site is conducted by independent third parties, in accordance with [Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks] requirements, ensuring there is no internal influence over the results,” Ludwikowski said in a statement. 

The Narwhal sent questions about the problem, and direct quotes from the documents, to every company in the Sarnia area that operates under a petrochemical or petroleum industry technical standard. That list also includes Imperial Oil, NOVA Chemicals, Shell Canada, Suncor Energy and Diamond Petrochemicals. Imperial said it “complies with air emissions reporting requirements under the applicable regulations” but “wouldn’t be able to speak to documents that we haven’t seen.” The rest did not respond. 

When the government first wrote the technical standards in 2016, the ministry committed to reviewing them by 2023. The Ford government did not follow through on that plan after it was elected in 2018, despite a warning in the 2023 briefing that said updates are “needed.” The same document also noted companies would likely push back. 

“Industry is looking for further simplifications and relaxations,” the memo said. “Will be opposed to more stringent requirements.” 

The Ford government also skipped a planned update to a policy that, among other things, was aimed at addressing the cumulative effects of benzene emissions from multiple facilities in both the Sarnia area and Hamilton. The previous Liberal government introduced the policy in spring 2018 and committed to reviewing it by 2020. The Progressive Conservatives formed government in 2020 and did not follow up on the plan.

Someone ‘directed’ Ontario’s Environment Ministry to soften sulphur dioxide rules

The province did pass legislation aimed at tackling sulphur dioxide emissions in general in 2022, but the 2023 briefing said the Environment Ministry was “directed” to give industry in the Sarnia area more time to comply, and to make some requirements in the rules “less stringent.” That’s despite concerns from Aamjiwnaang that the extensions granted to two companies in particular, Imperial Oil and Shell, would allow high levels of sulphur dioxide emissions to continue for years longer. 

The document did not say who gave the ministry that direction. The regulation’s listing on the environmental registry noted, “The ministry has carefully considered the comments received during the consultation period, and we are extending the implementation of some of the requirements by two years from the end of 2026 to 2028 as facilities stated they need more time to make these significant changes to their operations.”

The Environment Ministry didn’t answer questions about its reasoning for the decisions detailed in the briefing, and how it weighed Aamjiwnaang’s health concerns against pushback from industry.

Ontario backed off a plan to tighten rules around sulphur dioxide: docs 

The records don’t just show problems with benzene: the Progressive Conservative government also abandoned one proposed plan it said would dramatically cut emissions of another harmful pollutant. 

Sulphur dioxide, which smells like burnt matches, is best known as one of the chemicals that causes acid rain. But when people breathe in a lot of it at once, it can also irritate the human respiratory system.

Ontario has regulations limiting how much of the pollutant companies can emit, and has tightened them in recent years. But some facilities can’t meet those standards — and that includes two companies that make carbon black, a powder used in paint and rubber, with sulphur dioxide as a byproduct. One of those companies, Cabot Corporation, is located in Sarnia.

From 2018 to 2020 Cabot asked the Ontario government for an alternative to the regulations, the late 2023 memo said. Vanessa Craigie, a spokesperson for Cabot, said in a written statement that the company wanted more “flexibility” in the province’s timelines so it could develop and test technology to reduce its sulphur dioxide emissions. 

In June 2023, Ontario unveiled its answer to that request: a proposed technical standard for the carbon black industry. If finalized, by 2028 it would mandate both carbon black facilities in Ontario, including Cabot in Sarnia, to install technology that slashes sulphur dioxide pollution, the province said. By 2030, the companies would have to reduce their emissions by 95 per cent, meeting a new set of weekly and annual limits. 

At the time, Aamjiwnaang told the province those deadlines gave companies too much time to continue emitting the chemical, and companies should already have installed known technology to emit less.

Industry also had concerns about the technical standard, albeit different ones, according to the 2023 briefing note. Cabot told the ministry it would be “easier” for them to just follow the existing air standard instead. Craigie said the company is committed to environmental responsibility and developing new technology, but that the technical standard was “more complex” than the existing standards, “making compliance more challenging within the given timeframe.”

The ministry never finalized the plan, and did not answer questions from The Narwhal about why. Craigie said, “it was deemed not the optimal approach,” and that the ministry opted to work with facilities on specific plans to cut their emissions.

Craigie said Cabot’s final plan to “significantly” reduce sulphur dioxide emissions has received a green light from the ministry and from Aamjiwnaang, and will use “state of the art” technology piloted over the last few years. “In addition, Cabot is committed to voluntarily reducing its operations in order to reduce our contribution to the regional [sulphur dioxide] levels,” Craigie said. “Cabot will reduce operations when regional [sulphur dioxide] concentrations exceed certain levels at nearby monitoring stations.” 

Nahmabin said Cabot has worked to form a better relationship with Aamjinwaang in recent years, sharing more information and responding to concerns quickly. 

“That’s what we’re looking for with our neighbours,” Nahmabin said. 

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