Environmental Enforcement In Canadian Law - Research Paper Example

These are the points that cover environmental issues:

• Canada has plenty of energy and has tactfully used it for the countries economy. The extraction and processing of this natural resource has increased at an alarming rate. The development of oil sands in Western Canada, as well as the large oil projects off the coast of Newfoundland has given an economical boom to Canada. But this topic has given birth to new problems such as release of both gaseous and particulate emissions into the atmosphere, wastewater management, disposing of tailings and land recovery.
• Being the world’s largest natural gas producer and second-largest natural gas exporter the consumption too is high. Both Oil and natural gas exploration is upsetting the coastal population from the Beaufort Sea region to waters off Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island.
• The increase in toxic air emissions from plants, mills and automobiles.
• The need to conserve resources and use them in a proper manner.

Air Pollution

2000 reports have highlighted that Ontario is the third-worst polluting state in Canada and the US together. Canada also experience an increase in toxic air emissions from plants and mills by 7% from 1998 to 2000 where as US ensured that it fell by 8% over the same period as reported by the NAFTA Commission for Environmental Cooperation. (EIA, Country analysis)

Over the last few years the total air quality has improved in some areas and worsened in some others. (E.g. ambient levels of nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide dropped between 1990 and 2000 in urban areas, whereas, emissions of volatile organic compounds from all sources did not improve). Automobiles are the main contributors to Canada’s air pollution. According to the EC report the transportation sector is largely responsible for high emission levels in the country. Transportation sector alone is responsible for 40% of nitrogen oxide and 25% of carbon dioxide emitted into Canada’s atmosphere. In the decade between 1990 and 2000, automobiles as well automobile usage in the country increased dramatically by 9%, and the necessary fossil fuel consumption increased by almost 21% over the same period.

Due to large shift in the choice of vehicles from small passenger cars towards larger vehicles, such as sport-utility vehicles etc. has led to a decreased energy efficiency in the passenger transportation sector by 1.1%, between the period of 1990 and 2002. In February 2001, the then Environment Minister David Anderson announced the government’s 10-year Plan of Action for Cleaner Vehicles, Engines and Fuels. The initiatives included reducing the level of sulfur in diesel fuel used by trucks and buses and introduce low-emission vehicles.