Despite gains, Toronto’s air pollution still causing serious health problems
Toronto Public Health says that levels of major pollutants in the air have become stagnant after years of decline, with traffic emissions being the greatest source.

thestar.com
By PETER GOFFIN
March 10, 2017

The summer of 2016 was the first in Matthew Beaudry’s young life when fears of air pollution triggering his severe asthma didn’t stop him from playing outside.

Finally, he could ride his bike or play street hockey any time he liked.

Nine-year-old Matthew and his family had moved to Barrie, leaving a home in eastern Mississauga roughly five kilometres from thousands of spewing tailpipes on nearby highways.

Each year, on hot smoggy days, his mother, Tracey Beaudry, would pull him inside to keep his lungs safe from the acrid outdoor air.

“Someone told me ‘You’ve got to let him be a kid,’ ” she said. “I said ‘Sure I do, but you come with us to the hospital at 2 a.m. when he can’t breathe and is purple.’ ”

Major strides have been made in reducing pollution in the Greater Toronto Area, thanks in large part to changes in Ontario’s energy policies.

But Toronto Public Health says that levels of major pollutants in the air have become stagnant after years of decline, and air pollution is still a serious cause of illness in the city.

In 2004, the city determined that air pollution contributed to 1,700 premature deaths and 6,000 hospitalizations annually. By 2014, the number of pollution-related deaths had fallen by more than 23 per cent, to 1, 300 per year. And the number of hospitalizations had declined by 40 per cent, to 3,550.

But Monica Campbell, director of healthy public policy at Toronto Public Health, estimates that, since 2014, the number of pollution-related deaths and hospitalizations have remained roughly the same.

“We’re not seeing any improvements,” said Campbell. “Things have gotten better but we still have a ways to go. It’s concerning, and more needs to be done.”

Ontario shuttered the last of its coal-fired power plants in 2014, a development that Campbell called “a big positive contributor to cleaning up the air.”

Traffic emissions, the greatest local source of air pollution in Toronto, are the next domino that must fall, Campbell said.

Toronto’s three biggest polluting substances are nitrogen dioxide, ozone and “particulate matter,” a term for any number of solid or liquid chemicals in the air. All three are related to burning fossil fuels.

“These are the common air pollutants because they’re associated with heating our homes and driving our cars and running our industries,” said Kim Perrotta, executive director of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.

“Where once upon a time we thought of air pollution as an industrial issue, now it’s becoming a very traffic-related issue.”

The closer you live to a major roadway, the worse the air quality in your community is likely to be.

“We’ve done work where you can see nitrogen dioxide levels are really, really high along major highways and less so in other parts of the city,” said Campbell.

Exposure to these pollutants can lead to hospital visits and even be fatal for elderly people with underlying lung or heart issues, said Campbell.

In children, pollution exposure comes with the risk of long-lasting respiratory illness.

In 2016, Public Health Ontario reported that traffic-related air pollution can exacerbate, and even cause the onset of, asthma in kids.

The road to reducing air pollution requires rethinking our use of fossil fuels, said Perrotta.

“Things like trying to shift us to electric vehicles, trying to do anything we can do to shift people toward public transit, to active transportations like walking and cycling, even reducing energy use in the home,” she said.

But Canada’s air quality is not entirely within in its own control.

Toronto Public Health estimates that pollution from the U.S. causes roughly 30 per cent of this city’s air quality-related deaths and 25 per cent of air quality-related hospitalizations.

“People are often surprised because they can’t imagine that pollutants can travel such huge distances, but they can,” said Campbell.

Reduction in coal-fired energy production the U.S. has contributed to improvements in Ontario air quality over the past 10 to 15 years, said Perotta.

“But if they backtrack, that could have a real negative impact on us.”

During his election campaign, U.S. President Donald Trump promised to revive the American coal industry.

And budget proposal documents released this month show Trump wants to eliminate thousands of jobs from the Environmental Protection Agency - a move that the National Association of Clean Air Agencies said would “rip the heart and soul” out of air pollution controls.

“You really wonder what’s going to happen with the U.S.,” said Campbell. “Depending on how all that unfolds, that could be a new and significant source of pollution for Toronto.”

For Tracey Beaudry, there is no price that can be put on clean air.

“I don’t like high energy bills any more than the next person,” she said. “But I do like that people who have trouble breathing can go outside.”