Federal Contaminated Sites

In the 2012 Spring Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, the Commissioner focuses on the relationship between economic growth and environmental protection, the continuing debate often misdescribed as  "jobs versus the environment." He again concludes that the alleged tradeoff is a spurious one, and that environmental protections have major economic benefits.

One of the sectors he examines is contaminated sites.

"The federal government is responsible for managing thousands of contaminated sites across Canada (Chapter 3, Federal Contaminated Sites and Their Impacts). The associated risks to human health and the environment are as varied as the contaminated sites themselves; these range from extremely large abandoned mines and nuclear waste dumps to hundreds of smaller sites, such as buried fuel tanks. The budget for managing the sites is approximately $4 billion, and the funding is scheduled to end in 2020.