A/HRC/45/12/Add.1
B.
Recommendations
111.
The Special Rapporteur recommends that the Government of Canada:
(a)
Recognize the right to a healthy environment in its legislation, eventually,
through a constitutional amendment, and ensure that that right includes the duty to
prevent exposure to hazardous substances;
(b)
Ratify the Amendment to the Basel Convention on the Control of
Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal and establish
mechanisms for its implementation;152
(c)
Bring federal, provincial and territorial legislation fully into line with the
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;153
(d)
Ensure that environmental standards on reserves are as strong as or
stronger than the standards on neighbouring provincial, territorial and federal lands,
to ensure equal protection for indigenous persons;
(e)
Use the leverage it has, as the largest investor in various megaprojects,
including the Muskrat Falls dam and the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project,
to review procedures to ensure that they are compatible with the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and address the safety concerns of
provincial governments;
(f)
Amend the federal Impact Assessment Act to require consideration of the
impacts of proposed projects and policies on human rights, particularly the rights of
vulnerable populations;
(g)
Establish legally binding and enforceable health-based standards for air
quality and drinking water quality;
(h)
Improve the capacity of the Canadian Human Rights Commission to
initiate investigations and pursue environmental and human rights-based initiatives,
including on toxic exposure, including through budgetary allocations and research
promotion;
(i)
Consider potential environmental and health risks in developing
regulatory criteria for the treatment and discharge of process-affected water, including
in respect of oil sands;
(j)
Review federal, provincial and territorial laws to prevent upstream mine
waste dams from placing downstream communities at risk of exposure, require
independent panels to review extractive industry projects and apply best practices on
mine tailings safety;
(k)
Set clear and ambitious timelines to phase out industrial chemicals and
pesticides that are prohibited in other OECD member States;
(l)
Prohibit the export to non-OECD countries of industrial chemicals and
pesticides whose use is banned in Canada;
(m) Increase traceability and transparency of chemicals in products to
protect, inter alia, the rights of the child and reproductive health;
(n)
Fully incorporate the Convention on the Rights of the Child in policies and
procedures related to toxics and ratify its Optional Protocol on a communications
procedure;
(o)
Require the protection of vulnerable populations at all stages of the review
of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and categorize chemicals as toxic based
on their hazard, not their risk;
152
153
22
See also E/CN.4/2003/56/Add.2.
See also E/C.12/CAN/CO/6, para. 14.
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