With the relaunch of a program which implements Toronto’s community right to know bylaw, advocates hope reductions in harmful chemical exposures will follow.

While environmental and workplace exposures are known and significant contributors to the burden of cancer and other diseases, cancer prevention efforts mostly continue to focus on individual modifiable risk factors such as smoking, diet and lack of exercise. Thus, the onus for cancer prevention is shifted to individual workers and residents.

In Ontario occupational cancers claim more worker lives than traumatic injuries by far. Conservative estimates conclude that occupational exposures are responsible for an estimated 2 to 10 per cent of newly diagnosed cancers, but some believe it may be as high as 20 per cent. Similarly, environmental carcinogens are associated with two to as much as 19 per cent of all new cancer cases in Ontario each year.

With the substantial contribution of environmental and occupational carcinogens bold policy initiatives with the potential for population level impacts are much needed and long overdue.

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Toronto’s Community Right to Know Bylaw

Toronto has a long history of supporting cancer prevention efforts. Toronto’s Board of Health (BOH) first supported the formation of a Toronto Cancer Prevention Coalition (TCPC) in 1998 to strengthen cancer prevention efforts in the city. An alliance of government and community partners, the coalition promotes primary prevention of cancer through education, policy development and advocacy. Workers Health & Safety Centre (WHSC) is a founding member of TCPC’s Environmental and Occupational Carcinogens Working Group. Two other working groups focus on cancer prevention related to alcohol and ultraviolet radiation (although ultraviolent radiation is a leading cause of occupational cancers too).

TCPC was instrumental in securing Toronto’s Environmental Reporting and Disclosure Bylaw. The bylaw requires certain businesses to annually report their manufacture, use and release of 25 priority chemical substances and is designed to protect worker and public health and stimulate the greening of local businesses.

Implemented through ChemTRAC, the bylaw provides communities with information on local sources of pollution to help them engage with businesses, workers, and community partners to reduce the manufacture, use and release of toxins thereby improving worker and community health. When businesses reduce and better yet, eliminate harmful emissions at source it helps protect workers, improves community health and reduces pollution which also supports Toronto’s TransformTO strategy to reduce community-wide greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2040. Many toxins in our economy such as petrochemicals are known to cause cancer and drive greenhouse gas emissions throughout their lifecycle.

Paused during the COVID pandemic, ChemTRAC was recently relaunched and will require businesses to report 2024 data by June 30, 2025.

Other developments may further bolster the city’s cancer prevention efforts. Following receipt of a recent cancer prevention report, the Board of Health requested Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health provide additional specific recommendations and strategies to reduce occupational and environmental related cancers in Toronto. That report is due in April 2025.

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Model legislation

In the absence of provincial toxics reduction legislation (Ontario’s Toxics Reduction Act was repealed in 2021) sustaining ChemTRAC has become even more critical.

Meantime, many look to Massachusetts’ Toxics Use Reduction Act (TURA) as model legislation. It requires large chemical users to report and complete toxics reduction planning. Fees paid by reporting companies support several government agencies including the Toxics Use Reduction Institute (TURI). Through grants, TURI also helps businesses move to safer alternatives. TURI analyzed twenty years of TURA-reported data from Massachusetts companies and found carcinogen use declined 32 per cent and carcinogens released into the environment dropped by 93 per cent.

Legal obligations include quality training

Under Ontario’s Occupational Health & Safety Act employers have a general duty to take every reasonable precaution to protect workers. Certain hazardous substances, including benzene, lead, mercury, and vinyl chloride which are reportable under ChemTRAC, are also designated substances and require additional workplace assessment and control programs as well as training for workers and supervisors. Regulation 833 (Control of Exposure to Biological or Chemical Agents) also requires employers to consider substitution of a hazardous substance as a control measure when meeting their obligation to protect workers.

For our part, Workers Health & Safety Centre (WHSC) can assist workplaces through training and resources to raise awareness of hazardous exposures and the need for targeted prevention action in workplaces and communities. WHSC helps workplaces comply with many training requirements for worker health and safety awareness, JHSC Certification, HSRs in small workplaces, supervisors and WHMIS. These and other programs offer essential insight into the tools and information needed to identify and control or eliminate harmful exposures.

WHSC related resources:
Occupational cancer prevention in Ontario focus of groundbreaking new report
Asbestos precautions, including training, inadequate in Ontario schools, survey
Testing and tackling radon exposures in Ontario workplaces
Cancer rates higher in Ontario industrial cities, study finds
Concerning levels of diesel engine exhaust found on Ontario worksites
A more accurate picture of occupational disability, disease and death

Other related resources
Toronto ChemTRAC program  and Toronto Toxic Reduction Toolkit
Toronto Public Health Initiatives to Prevent Cancer
Ten Key Carcinogens in Toronto Workplaces and Environment (2002)
Occupational Cancer Research Centre
CAREX Canada (CARcinogenic EXposure)
Environmental Burden of Cancer in Ontario
Toxics Use Reduction Institute

Need more information?
Contact a WHSC training services representative in your area.
Email: contactus@whsc.on.ca
Visit: whsc.on.ca
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