Feds must better manage contaminated sites in North: report

A new report from Canada’s auditor general says the federal government is not effectively managing contaminated sites in the North.

The report, provided to Parliament in April, says that as of October 2023, there were 4,503 active sites across Canada. Active sites are confirmed to be contaminated, according to the federal government. There are 322 of these sites in the North.

There are another 1,496 sites suspected to be contaminated in Canada that have not yet been assessed, including 107 in the North.

Contaminated sites include abandoned mines, airports, industrial facilities, landfills and military bases that contain substances that could harm the environment and human health, the report says.

They can be as small as former RCMP detachments or as large as abandoned mine sites, such as the Jericho diamond mine in western Nunavut.

If not managed properly, contaminated sites can pollute surrounding water, soil and air, and “can take valuable land out of productive use and can jeopardize the way of life of those who live off the land,” the report says.

The federal government is responsible for managing contaminated sites that it owns and others for which it has accepted financial responsibility.

The audit covers the period from March 2019 to October 2023.

It focused on whether Crown‑Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada and Transport Canada, working with Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, “effectively managed federal contaminated sites in the North by reducing the risks to the environment and human health and the associated financial liability for current and future generations.”

The report concludes that despite work undertaken by departments to assess and remediate contaminated sites, there were still gaps in practices that were meant to reduce environmental and health risks.

A few of those gaps include no distinct reporting category for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly known as PFAS, or forever chemicals, at contaminated sites. PFAS chemicals are commonly found in a wide range of products and are known to cause a variety of adverse health effects and pose a risk to the environment.

The audit also found there is limited information publicly available that provides useful detail on contaminated sites in the North, including the current status of sites, or the reasons that annual financial adjustments were made. In some cases the federal government listed inconsistent information or data duplication.

“The lack of reporting and meaningful information on contaminated sites, including large abandoned mines, means that the Government of Canada, decision makers, and Canadians do not have a clear picture of the environmental and financial effects of these contaminated sites,” the report says.

The report makes 19 recommendations for the federal government to improve the way it manages contaminated sites.

Recommendations include improving transparency on contaminated site management and remediation efforts; publicly reporting progress that’s made; directly measuring reductions made in environmental and human health risk; finding ways Indigenous people can participate in and benefit from the management of contaminated sites in the North; and engaging an independent expert to review and assess the estimated liability of sites.

The report also includes responses from the departments reviewed, with all agreeing to the auditor general’s recommendations.