Primary Navigation

Secondary Navigation

News Home
> Canada News
> Tories ignore health...

Sat May 3, 1:50 PM

What's this

By Tim Naumetz, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA - The Harper government has ignored warnings from Health Canada and extended a regulatory exemption that will allow race cars and other competition vehicles to use leaded gasoline for two more years.

Cabinet renewed the exemption after lobbying from at least one association that organizes racing circuits in Canada and the United States.

It also added a year to the exemption the Environment Department originally proposed last December.

Under the change, approved by cabinet late last month, drag and stock-car racers will have until Jan. 1, 2010, to halt the use of leaded fuel, which has been banned for use by all other passenger vehicles in Canada since 1990.

The Indy, Formula One and NASCAR racing circuits, including Canadian NASCAR, no longer allow leaded fuel.

The Canadian exemption has been in place since 1994, when the Liberal government of Jean Chretien responded to the cancellation of a major racing event in Quebec the previous year because of the ban.

Successive governments extended the exemption three times, despite mounting evidence about lead's severely adverse effects on human health, particularly in children. It would have expired Jan. 1 without the Conservative exemption.

Health Canada says even low-level exposure can harm the intellectual development, behaviour, size and hearing of infants.

The Environment Department published a statement in the Canada Gazette in December, serving notice of a one-year extension to the exemption. That followed a consultation period in which the ban was opposed by one unidentified province, along with four of 11 other respondents, including citizens, racing bodies and track owners.

The Environment Department regulatory statement, which included an analysis of the impact of an extension, predicted some 2008 races would be cancelled should the exemption not be extended.

But the statement also warned that new evidence had emerged since the last extension in 2003 that health could be harmed by lower levels of lead exposure than previously thought - especially among children, toddlers and pregnant women. It said no air or soil sampling at or near race tracks has been conducted since 1997.

The statement pointed out that race tracks promote their competitions as family events.

The Castrol Raceway in Edmonton is currently offering free admission for children aged 12 and under, while the Grand Bend Motorplex in Grand Bend, Ont., is offering a special $5 admission for children aged two to 12 for its Canadian Nationals drag racing event in July.

Said the statement: "As the new scientific data clearly demonstrate that adverse health effects can arise at lead levels previously thought to be without harm, and given that the Canadian racing industry continues to grow and is marketed as a family activity, Health Canada has concluded that the continued use of leaded fuel in Canadian stock and drag car racing is a cause for concern, particularly to infants, toddlers and pregnant women who live near and/or attend car-racing events."

But under "Net Impacts," the statement later said the extension would benefit the industry and added: "In the absence of recent, specific lead exposure data, it is not possible to quantify the health costs associated with one additional year of exemption."

It said Health Canada was expected to complete a new review of the health effects of exposure to lead this spring.

New Democrat MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis criticized the government for extending the exemption because of the millions of dollars in economic losses racing car owners and organizers were predicting without it.

"What about the millions and millions of dollars it's costing us because of people's exposure to lead?" she said. "It's the most irresponsible action on the part of the government you can imagine."

"If they started putting pressure on the industry 14 or 15 years ago, they would have an alternative in place now."

The head of the Ohio-based International Hot Rod Association says U.S. racing teams would likely not want to compete at Canadian tracks if lead were banned in Canada.

"The majority of professional entries come from the United States and the rules on unleaded fuel are different here than they are in Canada," association president Aaron Polburn said in an interview from Norwalk, Ohio.

"I suppose if you look at a race team, 75 per cent of their racing is going to be done in the United States, 25 per cent in Canada, so the expense of having two different combinations, two different theories on how to do racing, is not the kind of burden that these guys want to take on," he said.

"What we're looking for is a complete exemption."

Polburn estimated the industry generates $29 million in economic activity in Canada, and said of the Health Canada concerns: "That's what was stated and everyone has asked for that documentation and nobody can produce it."

Conservative MP Joe Preston confirmed he lobbied Environment Minister John Baird on behalf of drag racing and stock-car racing enthusiasts in his Elgin-Middlesex-London riding in southwestern Ontario. He said he was also aware of the dangers of exposure to lead.

"That being said, when all cars use lead there's a real huge heath concern, because there's more lead in the air, but when you're talking about a very, very limited use by some of the cars at some of the drag strips, I'm not certain we're talking about a prolonged exposure to it," he said.

Polburn said a majority of the 16,000 race teams sanctioned in the United States and Canada use leaded fuel. He and Preston cited government statistics showing racing accounts for only 1.5 per cent of leaded fuel consumption in Canada, with the remainder being used by small aircraft - which are permanently exempted from the ban.

A spokesman for Baird said the 60-day comment period in a "99 per cent support rate." He said 6,800 signatures on petitions opposed the ban, as did "comments" from a dozen MPs, including Liberals, Conservatives and an Independent.

Spokesman Garry Keller said no one from the racing industry lobbied Baird directly. He noted the Environment Canada regulatory statement said Health Canada is not expected to produce new evidence about the health impact of lead exposure until later this year.

As for the one-year difference between the extension originally proposed and discussed by governments and the public last year and the longer term cabinet approved, Keller said it is "perfectly within the cabinet's authority to make such a decision."