A/HRC/45/12/Add.1 B. Income, race and ethnicity 45. Poverty contributes to vulnerability both in terms of greater exposure to toxics and of less power to take action to obtain protection from such exposure.58 Poverty, health and the environment intersect in especially prominent ways when it comes to addressing water and air pollution.59 More than 1 million low-income Canadians live within one kilometre of a major source of industrial pollution, which results in elevated risks of hospitalization for respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses.60 The burden of such disproportionate exposure has plagued poor communities. A 2003 study in Ontario found a correlation between exposure to particulate matter and sulphur dioxide and income level.61 A 2008 mapping of poverty and pollution in Toronto showed that 17 neighbourhoods with high levels of air pollutants also had poverty rates above the national average.62 The concentration of poverty in Hamilton and health inequalities between different neighbourhoods, including with respect to air pollution, amplify social deprivation.63 46. Inequality among low-income Canadians regarding their exposure to toxics must be considered in the context of complex and overlapping inequalities that, together, form a cumulative barrier to the fulfilment of rights. Approximately 20.8 per cent of racialized (nonCaucasian) people have low incomes compared to 12.2 per cent non-racialized people. 64 According to the 2016 census, about 81 per cent of people on reserves had median incomes below the low-income measure. 65 Indigenous and racialized people in Canada tend to be locked in a vicious, intergenerational cycle of poverty, 66 to which their disproportionate exposure to toxic substances contribute. For example, the First Nations Food, Nutrition and Environment Study confirms that indigenous peoples in some geographic areas have higher levels of heavy metals in their blood than the general Canadian population.67 Exposure to heavy metals not only leads to reduced income when diseases or disability become manifest, but also to well-documented cognitive and behavioural impacts that reduce earning potential across lifetimes. 47. Environmental injustice persists in Canada. A significant proportion of the population in Canada experiences racial discrimination, with indigenous and racialized peoples being worst affected. 68 The Canadian Human Rights Commission recently raised concerns of “environmental racism” to the Human Rights Council, explaining that “landfills, waste dumps and other environmentally hazardous activities are disproportionately situated near neighbourhoods of people of African descent, creating serious health risks”. 69 Garbage dumps are disproportionately situated in African-Canadian communities in Nova Scotia.70 The disproportionate exposure to pollution is worsened by pre-existing and long-standing socioeconomic inequalities resulting from the colonial legacy of Canada. Outside Canada, 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 10 www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/SREX-Chap2_FINAL-1.pdf. www.who.int/tobacco/research/economics/publications/oecd_dac_pov_health.pdf. https://secure.cihi.ca/free_products/UrbanPhysicalReport2012EN_web.pdf. Murray M. Finkelstein and others, “Relation between income, air pollution and mortality: a cohort study”, Canadian Medical Association Journal, vol. 169, No. 5 (September 2003), pp. 397–402. See also www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/78069/E93670.pdf. https://cela.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/633B_PWSES_TOfacts.pdf. https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/14827/1/fulltext.pdf. https://colourofpoverty.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cop-coc-fact-sheet-2-an-introduction-toracialized-poverty-3.pdf. Ibid. Submission by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (2019); www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2019/12/Canad a%27s%20Colour%20Coded%20Income%20Inequality.pdf. www.fnfnes.ca/docs/FNFNES_draft_technical_report_Nov_2__2019.pdf. www.environicsinstitute.org/docs/default-source/project-documents/race-relations-2019-survey/racerelations-in-canada-2019-survey---final-report-english.pdf?sfvrsn=ef8d61e3_2. www.upr-info.org/sites/default/files/document/canada/session_30__may_2018/chrc_upr30_can_e_main.pdf; A/HRC/36/60/Add.1, para. 63. Submission by Ingrid Waldron (2019).