Canadians’ health and their social and economic well-being are fundamentally linked to the quality of their environment. Recognizing this, in 2004 the Government of Canada committed to establishing national indicators of freshwater quality, air quality and greenhouse gas emissions. The goal of these new indicators is to provide Canadians with more regular and reliable information on the state of their environment and how it is linked with human activity. Environment Canada, Statistics Canada and Health Canada are working together to further develop  and communicate these indicators.

The first report on the Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators presents three indicators. The air quality indicator tracks Canadians’ exposure to ground-level ozone—a key component of smog and one of the most common and harmful air pollutants to which people are exposed. The greenhouse gas emissions indicator tracks the annual releases of the six greenhouse gases that are the major contributors to climate change. The freshwater quality indicator reports the status of surface water quality at selected monitoring sites across the country. For this first report, the focus of the indicator is on the protection of aquatic life, such as plants, invertebrates and fish. The main report on the indicators (Canadian environmental Sustainability Indicators 2005, product no. 16-251-X), summarizes the key findings for the three indicators.

The Canadian Environment Sustainability Indicators: Socio-economic Information fills an essential and complementary need: helping readers put the indicator results in context by providing information about the forces driving the changes in the indicators. It draws on the wealth of information that Statistics Canada has assembled over many decades, presenting data in familiar formats and in ways that will be new to many readers. This report will be updated and expanded as new data becomes available.