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Chapter VII: Canada’s Regulation of Phosphorus in Detergents
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the international joint commission is not a lawmaking body; it can only make recommendations to the federal governments of Canada and the United States, which can choose whether or not to act upon them. When the IJC boards’ summary report was issued, in October 1969, a comprehensive water bill was making its way through the Canadian Parliament. Despite vigorous public opposition by industrial sympathizers to the boards’ recommendation for the elimination of phosphorus from detergents, the Canadian government chose to incorporate the IJC’s specific version of the recommendation in the water bill, enacted during the summer of 1970. While the IJC and its boards had been assessing the state of the lower Great Lakes in the mid to late 1960s, the pollution of Lake Erie had attracted widespread public attention in Canada, as in the United States. Public concern appears to have been at least as intense in Canada as in the United States. Traces of it were evident before the release of the IJC boards’ summary report, but they greatly intensified immediately thereafter. Newspapers all over the country ran stories on the summary report.1 Canadian Business reported, in November 1969, that public opinion favored a crackdown on water pollution.2 In January 1970, Maclean’s magazine told of a 101 Canada’s Regulation of Phosphorus in Detergents C H A P T E R V I I phosphate-free detergent made by a University of Toronto graduate student .3 Canadian newspaper coverage of eutrophication increased dramatically in the years 1969–1970.4 Individuals wrote to their provincial and federal government representatives. During the first two months of 1970, the minister of the federal Department of Energy, Mines, and Resources, the department responsible for water quality, received 413 letters, telegrams, signed protests, and other communications calling for legislation to ban phosphates in detergents; and during the ensuing two months, a total of 1,678 such communications were received—a fourfold increase.5 Various groups also responded to the issue. The Canadian Federation of University Women wrote to the federal minister of Public Works.6 The Montreal-based Society to Overcome Pollution (known by the acronym STOP, from its motto “Save Tomorrow—Oppose Pollution”) wrote to the Swedish Consumers Association concerning the seven low-phosphate detergents being marketed in Sweden in that country’s effort to combat eutrophication . The society forwarded the information received to the minister of Energy, Mines, and Resources, asking: “How long must we wait before a limit is placed on the phosphate content of detergents in Canada?”7 The National Council of Jewish Women and the Montreal Council of Women wrote jointly to the federal government, detergent manufacturers, and manufacturers of washing machines, urging compliance with the recommendations of the summary report and adding: “Remember please, that we care about our comforts—but we care more about our children and their future in our civilization.”8 But the most visible and most influential group was Pollution Probe, an organization of faculty and students at the University of Toronto which was formed in 1969 and was led by Donald A. Chant, professor of zoology at the university and an authority on pest control and pesticides.9 Pollution Probe and STOP independently analyzed the phosphate content of Canadian detergents, published the results, and urged consumers to use the lowphosphate detergents. In addition, Pollution Probe strove “to work with and encourage the [Ontario] provincial government in its inclination to ban phosphate detergents by 1972.”10 Protesting against the “‘whiter than white’ idiocy,” Canadian Audubon also published Pollution Probe’s results for the use of those who were “more concerned about the state of the envi102 Canada’s Regulation of Phosphorus in Detergents [3.229.122.112] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 08:56 GMT) ronment than about being the clothesline queen of the neighbourhood.”11 Canadian Consumer confirmed Pollution Probe’s analysis of the phosphate content of detergents, which the latter summarized as follows: “The content of phosphorus in household detergents varies somewhat, and in some is as high as 50% by weight. The chemical water softeners are the worst (as high as 75%), and the laundry detergents and automatic dishwater detergents generally fall in the 20% to 50% range. Liquid detergents, especially liquid dishwater detergents, are very low. The laundry soaps are also very low (less than 1%).”12 Clearly, during the winter of 1969–1970, the Canadian public became aroused over the related eutrophication and detergent phosphate issues. Canadian government officials and scientists in...