Speaking Notes for the Hon. David Anderson P.C., M.P. , Minister of the Environment Check against delivery Good afternoon. When I talk to people in British Columbia about clean air, I hear many of the same concerns that are expressed throughout Canada.
People are worried about the impact of pollution on their health.
And those worries are well-founded. Across Canada, federal studies show there are more than 5,000 premature deaths a year that can be attributed to air pollution and a host of other medical conditions. That means air pollution is killing more Canadians than traffic accidents or breast cancer. And no province is immune from this devastating impact. And since infants are two to three times more likely to be hospitalized, the children's ward will receive a disproportionate share of these cases.