Throughout most of the world, human activities affect the natural environment on a large scale, often causing harmful pollution that impacts human health and the health of all living species. Amongst human communities, Indigenous, racialized, and low-income populations are often burdened more than others by the harmful effects of pollution, reflecting legacies of environmental racism and injustice.

Many of the products that humans produce and consume carry toxic burdens that pollute the planet we call home. Toxic burdens include the impacts of toxic substances that are used in manufacturing or released when products are used, or that leach into the environment when products are thrown away as waste. To maintain a liveable world and steward a healthy environment for generations to come, we need to prevent pollution before it happens, and we need to clean up and restore polluted spaces to the extent we can.

In Canada, the federal government, provincial and territorial governments, and Indigenous governments across the country play important roles in pollution prevention and environmental restoration. At the federal level, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 provides a national framework for the identification and control of toxic substances throughout all of Canada, and it recognizes that every individual in Canada has a right to a healthy environment. In Atlantic Canada, each of the four provinces has laws in place to contribute additional layers of pollution prevention, as does the Nunatsiavut Government in Labrador.

As part of our work, we advocate for strong and effective laws designed to prevent pollution and protect and restore the environment, including laws controlling toxic substances and laws requiring environmental impact assessments of proposed activities. We also advocate for laws recognizing human rights to healthy and biodiverse environments throughout Atlantic Canada, and we work with partners to advance the rights of nature too.

To learn more about our work in this area, search our Resource Library for research reports, blog posts, and submissions to government.