Climate Change and Health in Canada

Ford, Lea Berrang

Health benefits include fewer deaths due to cold High confidence (53) . Children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable during heat wave events (54) . The increasing number of summer days in urban areas of Quebec and Ontario declared unsafe for outdoor activity due to smog and heat can be expected to negatively impact public health through reduced outdoor and exercise activities (55) . Poor air quality, resulting from smog and air pollution, is associated with asthma, chronic respiratory disease and cardiovascular disease, and is a serious public health issue in Canada. Smog and air pollution are expected to continue to increase with climatic change (23, 56) . Toronto public health recently predicted that climate change would cause a 20% increase in air-pollution related deaths in the city by 2050 (57). Many regions are expected to see an increase in summer storms. This may affect risks associated with flooding, and will have implications for water quality and contamination (26, (58) (59) (60) . A prolonged drought followed by a high rainfall event -such as a summer storm -can pick up surface contaminants and flush them into local waterways, causing a 'pulse' in the contaminant load of local water treatment facilities (26, 40) . This scenario was determined to be one of the factors contributing to the E. coli outbreak in Walkerton, Ontario in 2000 (61) . In addition, higher than normal rainfall events may exceed expected norms for sewage treatment facilities, overwhelming treatment systems. In the Inuit community of Arctic Bay, increased rainfall has been observed to overflow the local sewage ponds, contaminating the bay and roads (62) . These scenarios are consistent with climate change predictions and can be expected to occur more frequently.