As the United States sets its first national limits on toxic forever chemicals in drinking water, researchers say Canada is lagging when it comes to regulations.
Still, they acknowledged that Canada is making progress in trying to reduce and prevent the contamination of water in the country.
From carpeting to non-stick cookware, so-called forever chemicals, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), have been widely found in consumer products since the 1950s.
These chemicals are designed to be so strong that they don’t break down fully in the environment. They’re used to make products non-stick, oil- and water-repellent and resistant to temperature change.
Growing evidence shows PFAS are in Canadian freshwater sources and drinking water, according to Health Canada. Studies have linked PFAS to serious health problems, such as cancer, low birth weight and liver disease.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its drinking water regulation for six PFAS last week. Under the new regulation, utilities are required to limit certain forever chemicals, including two common types —perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) — to four parts per trillion, or four nanograms per litre. As well, water providers must test for these PFAS and alert the public when levels are too high.
Similarly, Health Canada proposed new limits for PFAS in drinking water in February 2023. There are currently drinking water quality guidelines for PFOA and PFOS in Canada.
Under the current guidelines, the limit is 200 ng/L for PFOA, which is 50 times more than the U.S. limit of 4 ng/L. At 600 ng/L for PFOS, the maximum allowable amount in Canada for this type of forever chemical is 150 times more than the U.S limit.
In light of the changes south of the border, CTVNews.ca asked Health Canada whether there were any plans to change the limits, or to follow the American lead on the issue.
In a recent email to CTVNews.ca, Health Canada spokesperson Mark Johnson said the department has proposed a drinking water objective with a much lower limit of 30 ng/L for all PFAS detected in drinking water.
Canada’s strategy
Despite Canada’s proposed drinking water limit for PFAS being about eight times higher than the ones for the United States, many factors are probably at play, according to an expert.
Satinder Kaur Brar, a civil engineering professor and James and Joanne Love Chair in Environmental Engineering at York University in Toronto, has been doing work for the past few decades on various contaminants including PFAS in waters and wastewaters.
“Definitely U.S. EPA has taken a leap forward in this direction,” she said in a video interview with CTVNews.ca, noting no international standards exist. “So I would say that if we have set up higher limits here for the Canadian citizens, definitely we are exposing them more, or making them more vulnerable to these chemicals.”
Canada’s recently proposed limits only deal with drinking water, not other contaminated sources such as food, soils, sediments and air, Brar pointed out. She points to political leaders as being among those to blame for what some may perceive as holes in the proposed policy changes.
“I would say that the political will is also lacking because political will also plays an important role in bringing out these regulations,” she said. “We have left out many important environmental compartments, which are all interlinked and contributing to the overall … presence of PFAS in water.”
‘Stringent enough’?
And when it comes to laws and regulations, a senior environmental law researcher and paralegal says Canada has made strides in tackling the problem, but it’s lagging behind some countries such as the U.S.
“So while the U.S. EPA numbers are set much lower than Canada’s, what we see in Canada is at least a progression from the current guidelines, and that’s not a bad thing,” Fe de Leon, with the Canadian Environmental Law Association in Toronto, said in a video interview with CTVNews.ca.
“The question is whether it’s stringent enough to deal with the scope of impacts that these chemicals have on the environment and particularly human health.”
Health Canada’s Johnson said the final drinking water objective for PFAS will be published later this year, replacing current guidelines. Provinces and territories use these guidelines and objectives to create drinking water quality requirements for all Canadians, he said.
Provincial and territorial authorities have been monitoring treated drinking water in some regions, and the federal government has been monitoring PFAS in freshwater since 2013, Johnson added.
“Current data regarding PFAS in Canadian freshwater sources and drinking water suggest that PFAS are present at levels below the new proposed objective,” Johnson said in an emailed statement. “However, the concentrations of PFAS in freshwater and drinking water may be higher near facilities that use large amounts of these chemicals, locations where firefighting foams containing PFAS were used to put out a fire, and landfills and wastewater treatment plants.”
‘The biggest issue’
A major problem is a lack of information on the forever chemicals affecting Canadians, many of whom may be unaware of what these chemicals are, where they’re found and the impact they can have on our health and the world around us.
“The biggest issue right now is complete disclosure of how many of these chemicals are actually found in the Canadian market and are being released into the environment,” Brar said. “We don’t have a good handle on that.”
Over the last few years, she said, more sites across Canada have been “impacted substantially” by PFAS. “So this is absolutely necessary that the government moves ahead and takes action on these chemicals, and create their own strategy.”
A chemical engineering professor who leads a team that conducts research on the impacts of these chemicals says he believes that both Canada and the U.S. have made their boldest moves so far to address the problem.
“The net effect is that both the U.S. and Canada are trying to limit … these chemicals in drinking water to levels that are extremely low and barely measurable,” said Franco Berruti, director at the Institute for Chemicals and Fuels from Alternative Resources at Western University in London, Ont., in a video interview with CTVNews.ca. “At the end of the day …they will have the similar effect.”
Barriers to a solution
Berruti said there isn’t a simple solution to the problem of controlling the impact of forever chemicals. One of the barriers to regulating them is the many unknowns about PFAS.
“It’s not just a question of two or three chemicals that are considered toxic that one would regulate. But we are talking about thousands and thousands of these chemicals. We don’t even know how to analyze these chemicals,” he said.
The technologies that exist to reduce or eliminate PFAS “are very limited,” Berruti added.
Scientists are still studying different aspects of the problem, including investigating which forever chemicals are more problematic and measurable.
Out of more than 12,000 types of PFAS, Berruti estimates that only 40 may be measurable.
“To set the limits without having the ways of measuring those … extremely low concentrations doesn’t mean anything until the methodologies are there to demonstrate that those limits are reached,” he said.
While Canada doesn’t produce PFAS, Berruti said, the country should closely monitor the imports of products that are contaminated with the chemicals.
Industry concerns
Health advocates praised the U.S. move to create its first drinking water limits on PFAS, but the news wasn’t universally celebrated.
Among the concerns raised were those from water utilities, which said customers will end up paying more for water since treatment systems are expensive to install.
Actions taken in Canada have also been met with challenges and criticism.
In May 2023, Health Canada issued a draft recommendation to label PFAS, an entire class of chemicals, as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
Cassie Barker, the toxics program manager at Environmental Defence, said in March that it was important to label the entire class, not only each individual substance, as toxic, The Canadian Press reported. When Canada designated and banned some types of PFAS in 2012, Barker said, it became a “whack-a-mole” situation, because other products used to replace them also posed health risks.
In response to the proposed PFAS toxic designation, the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada wrote to Environment and Climate Change Canada in June 2023 asking that PFAS not be labelled toxic as an entire class of substances, and instead be designated on a case-by-case basis, based on proven risk.
PFAS currently used by Canadian industry “have not been shown to be of high risk” and sweeping prohibitions could cause economic hardship to the industry, it wrote in its letter.
In the States, growing awareness has led to lawsuits against manufacturers.
For example, 3M settled a series of lawsuits last June that could exceed US$12.5 billion, involving more than 300 U.S. municipalities where the chemicals were found in drinking water. The company said it plans to stop making PFAS by 2025.
In the same month, DuPont de Nemours Inc. and spinoffs Chemours Co. and Corteva Inc. reached a US$1.18-billion deal over similar complaints by about 300 drinking water providers.
And legal action has occurred in Canada as well.
According to the business law firm Osler, a class action was certified in 2021 against the National Research Council of Canada over PFAS in the surface water and groundwater at the NRC’s facility in Mississippi Mills, Ont.
With files from The Associated Press and The Canadian Press
Montreal Alouettes wide receiver Tyson Philpot has announced he will be out for the rest of the CFL season.
The Delta, B.C., native posted the news on his Instagram page Thursday.
“To Be Continued. Shoutout my team, the fans of the CFL and the whole city of Montreal! I can’t wait to be back healthy and write this next chapter in 2025,” the statement read.
Philpot, 24, injured his foot in a 33-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Aug. 10 and was placed on the six-game injured list the next week.
The six-foot-one, 195-pound receiver had 58 receptions, 779 yards and five touchdowns in nine games for the league-leading Alouettes in his third season.
Philpot scored the game-winning touchdown in Montreal’s Grey Cup win last season to punctuate a six-reception, 63-yard performance.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa sustained a concussion for the third time in his NFL career, leaving his team’s game Thursday night against Buffalo after running into defensive back Damar Hamlin and hitting the back of his head against the turf.
Tagovailoa remained down for about two minutes before getting to his feet and walking to the sideline after the play in the third quarter. He made his way to the tunnel not long afterward, looking into the stands before smiling and departing toward the locker room.
The Dolphins needed almost no time before announcing it was a concussion. The team said he had two during the 2022 season, and Tagovailoa was diagnosed with another concussion when he was a college player at Alabama.
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Tagovailoa would get “proper procedural evaluation” and “appropriate care” on Friday.
“The furthest thing from my mind is, ‘What is the timeline?’ We just need to evaluate and just worry about my teammate, like the rest of the guys are,” McDaniel said. “We’ll get more information tomorrow and take it day by day from here.”
Some players saw Tagovailoa in the locker room after the game and said they were encouraged. Tagovailoa spoke with some players and then went home after the game, McDaniel said.
“I have a lot of love for Tua, built a great relationship with him,” said quarterback Skylar Thompson, who replaced Tagovailoa after the injury. “You care about the person more than the player and everybody in the organization would say the same thing. Just really praying for Tua and hopefully everything will come out all right.”
Tagovailoa signed a four-year, $212 million extension before this season — a deal that makes him one of the highest-paid players in the NFL — and was the NFL’s leading passer in Week 1 this season. Tagovailoa left with the Dolphins trailing 31-10, and that was the final score.
“If you know Tua outside of football, you can’t help but feel for him,” Bills quarterback Josh Allen said on Amazon following the game. “He’s a great football player but he’s an even greater human being. He’s one of the best humans on the planet. I’ve got a lot of love for him and I’m just praying for him and his family, hoping everything’s OK. But it’s tough, man. This game of football that we play, it’s got its highs and it’s got its lows — and this is one of the lows.”
Tagovailoa’s college years and first three NFL seasons were marred by injury, though he positioned himself for a big pay bump with an injury-free and productive 2023 as he led the Dolphins into the playoffs. He threw for 29 touchdowns and a league-best 4,624 yards last year.
When, or if, he can come back this season is anyone’s guess. Tagovailoa said in April 2023 that the concussions he had in the 2022 season left him contemplating his playing future. “I think I considered it for a time,” he said then, when asked if he considered stepping away from the game to protect himself.
McDaniel said it’s not his place to say if Tagovailoa should return to football. “He’ll be evaluated and we’ll have conversations and progress as appropriate,” McDaniel said.
Tagovailoa was hurt Thursday on a fourth-down keeper with about 4:30 left in the third. He went straight ahead into Hamlin and did not slide, leading with his right shoulder instead.
Hamlin was the player who suffered a cardiac arrest after making a tackle during a Monday night game in January 2023 at Cincinnati, causing the NFL to suspend a pivotal game that quickly lost significance in the aftermath of a scary scene that unfolded in front of a national television audience.
Tagovailoa wound up on his back, both his hands in the air and Bills players immediately pointed at him as if to suggest there was an injury. Dolphins center Aaron Brewer quickly did the same, waving to the sideline.
Tagovailoa appeared to be making a fist with his right hand as he lay on the ground. It was movement consistent with something that is referred to as the “fencing response,” which can be common after a traumatic brain injury.
Tagovailoa eventually got to his feet. McDaniel grabbed the side of his quarterback’s head and gave him a kiss on the cheek as Tagovailoa departed. Thompson came into the game to take Tagovailoa’s spot.
“I love Tua on and off the football field,” Bills edge Von Miller said. “I’m a huge fan of him. I can empathize and sympathize with him because I’ve been there. I wish him the best.”
Tagovailoa’s history with concussions — and how he has since worked to avoid them — is a huge part of the story of his career, and now comes to the forefront once again.
He had at least two concussions during the 2022 season. He was hurt in a Week 3 game against Buffalo and cleared concussion protocol, though he appeared disoriented on that play but returned to the game.
The NFL later changed its concussion protocol to mandate that if a player shows possible concussion symptoms — including a lack of balance or stability — he must sit out the rest of the game.
Less than a week later, in a Thursday night game at Cincinnati, Tagovailoa was concussed on a scary hit that briefly knocked him unconscious and led to him being taken off the field on a stretcher.
His second known concussion of that season came in a December game against Green Bay, and he didn’t play for the rest of the 2022 season. After that, Tagovailoa began studying ways where he may be able to fall more safely and protect himself against further injury — including studying jiu-jitsu.
“I’m not worried about anything that’s out of my hands,” McDaniel said. “I’m just worried about the human being.”
NEW YORK (AP) — When her husband turns on the television to hear news about the upcoming presidential election, that’s often a signal for Lori Johnson Malveaux to leave the room.
It can get to be too much. Often, she’ll go to a TV in another room to watch a movie on the Hallmark Channel or BET. She craves something comforting and entertaining. And in that, she has company.
While about half of Americans say they are following political news “extremely” or “very” closely, about 6 in 10 say they need to limit how much information they consume about the government and politics to avoid feeling overloaded or fatigued, according to a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts.
Make no mistake: Malveaux plans to vote. She always does. “I just get to the point where I don’t want to hear the rhetoric,” she said.
The 54-year-old Democrat said she’s most bothered when she hears people on the news telling her that something she saw with her own eyes — like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — didn’t really happen.
“I feel like I’m being gaslit. That’s the way to put it,” she said.
Sometimes it feels like ‘a bombardment’
Caleb Pack, 23, a Republican from Ardmore, Oklahoma, who works in IT, tries to keep informed through the news feeds on his phone, which is stocked with a variety of sources, including CNN, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press.
Yet sometimes, Pack says, it seems like a bombardment.
“It’s good to know what’s going on, but both sides are pulling a little bit extreme,” he said. “It just feels like it’s a conversation piece everywhere, and it’s hard to escape it.”
Media fatigue isn’t a new phenomenon. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in late 2019 found roughly two in three Americans felt worn out by the amount of news there is, about the same as in a poll taken in early 2018. During the 2016 presidential campaign, about 6 in 10 people felt overloaded by campaign news.
But it can be particularly acute with news related to politics. The AP-NORC/USAFacts poll found that half of Americans feel a need to limit their consumption of information related to crime or overseas conflicts, while only about 4 in 10 are limiting news about the economy and jobs.
It’s easy to understand, with television outlets like CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC full of political talk and a wide array of political news online, sometimes complicated by disinformation.
“There’s a glut of information,” said Richard Coffin, director of research and advocacy for USAFacts, “and people are having a hard time figuring out what is true or not.”
Women are more likely to feel they need to limit media
In the AP-NORC poll, about 6 in 10 men said they follow news about elections and politics at least “very” closely, compared to about half of women. For all types of news, not just politics, women are more likely than men to report the need to limit their media consumption, the survey found.
White adults are also more likely than Black or Hispanic adults to say they need to limit media consumption on politics, the poll found.
Kaleb Aravzo, 19, a Democrat, gets a baseline of news by listening to National Public Radio in the morning at home in Logan, Utah. Too much politics, particularly when he’s on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, can trigger anxiety and depression.
“If it pops up on my page when I’m on social media,” he said, “I’ll just scroll past it.”
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Sanders reported from Washington. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.
The AP poll of 1,019 adults was conducted July 29-August 8, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
