The Canada-US Environmental Relationship

Abstract

Toxic substances in the Great Lakes are causing concerns for human health and have shown minimal improvement in the last decade. Degraded air quality in urban areas along the border leads to air pollution alerts. New species introduced in terrestrial and aquatic environments are creating significant ecosystem changes. All these problems spill across the Canada-US border, leading to potential disputes. However, at the present time there is an unexpectedly smooth, well-functioning, bilateral environmental relationship with virtually none of the acrimony that marked the Great Lakes pollution disputes of the 19703, the acid rain controversy of the 19805, or the Pacific Salmon conflict of the 19903. That does not, however, mean it is a time of significant environmental improvement.The long-standing North American concern for cross-border environmental issues makes sense when one looks even briefly at the shared geography of these two countries that leaves them environmentally exposed to one another. They share the world's longest international border (approximately 8,000 km when the Alaskan border with Yukon and British Columbia is included) and four sea boundaries. They also share the world's longest international fresh water boundary, which runs 2,700 km through the St. Lawrence River-Great Lakes region in eastern North America, a region that, for the most part, is heavily populated and industrialized. Indeed, most Canadians live within ioo km of this border. In the western part of the continent, numerous rivers cross, and several recross, the Canada-US boundary. The area drained by these rivers is heavily agricultural and thus the potential for disputes involving reduced water quality and quantity abound. Most air masses move across both countries from west to east, but depending on the season, pollutants might be transported from the northwest to the southeast (i.e., from Canada into the US) or from the southwest to the northeast (i.e., from the US into Canada). Because the old heavy industry of the US is located in the northeast, along Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, and because of the proximity of many Canadian smelters and power plants to the US border, opportunities for cross-border air pollution are also numerous. Urban areas, with their concentration of cars, also lead to cross-border air quality problems. It is no surprise then, that the two countries have been confronted with cross-border pollution for almost 100 years, beginning long before the modern environmental era of the 1970s.Both nations have a mutual stake in sustaining their economies and shared environment, with responsibility for its custody and maintenance that neither can fulfill without the other.1 While it is true that the quality of the environment in each country is somewhat dependent on actions of the other country, shared values of the citizens of both countries, which place high regard on environmental quality, should lead to generally harmonious relations. There are two major impediments to this rosy scenario. The first is when the benefits of an activity result in economic gain for one country while the environmental detriments mostly accrue in the other country. This leads to a case of divergence and the potential for international cooperation is greatly diminished. The acid rain dispute of the 19803 is perhaps a classic example of this. The second happens when a generally pro-environment philosophy of the citizenry is trumped by an administration that is not environmentally oriented or has other more pressing conflicting priorities. It can be argued that this latter case exists at this time in our history.In the United States, the administration of George W. Bush is clearly pro-business and is openly hostile to more governmental control of corporate pollution. The National Resources Defense Council in the US states that [t]his administration, in catering to industries that put America's health and natural heritage at risk, threatens to do more damage to our environmental protections than any other in U. …