e-3459 (Environment)

Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament assembled

• Lead shot is a toxic non-essential metal that provides a route of food chain contamination, to which exposure is considered unsafe at any level to humans and wildlife;
• High-quality lead-free ammunition is widely available in the Canadian market, is cost- effective, and in many cases, outperforms lead;
• The Canadian Wildlife Service estimate an average of 240,000 – 360,000 individual waterfowl die of lead poisoning in Canada annually from lead shot ingestion;
• In the absence of any additional restrictions, the use of lead ammunition is expected to increase over the next decade and the level of lead released into the environment is expected to increase from approximately 5,000 tonnes (2016) to 5,800 tonnes by 2025 (Government of Canada);
• The Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA) is the primary element of the legislative framework for protecting the Canadian environment and human health;
• Clause 65(3) of the CEPA compels the ministers of Environment and of Health to place on a Virtual Elimination List any substances that meet the following criteria: Toxic as defined under CEPA; Primarily the result of human activity; Persistent - take a long time to break down; Bio-accumulative – collect in living organisms and end up in the food chain; and
• Virtual elimination is the reduction in the environment of the most dangerous toxic substances to a level below which these releases cannot be accurately measured.